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1 1 , 1 



























UNITY IN VARIETY. 














































































Unity in Variety 


A SERIES OF 


ARGUMENTS 

BASED ON 


THE DIVINE WORKMANSHIP IN OUR PLANET; THE CON- 
STITUTION OF THE HUMAN MIND; AND THE 
INSPIRED HISTORY OF RELIGION. 


BY 

GEORGE WARBURTON WELDON, M.A., 

* ft 

Trinity College, Cambridge. 


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New- York : 

T. WHITTAKER & CO., No. 3 BIBLE HOUSE. 

1872. 


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S. W. GREEN, 
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preface to the 


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The full introduction to the following work, 
which has been given by the author himself, leaves 
nothing to be explained, except the reason for 
publishing “ Unity in Variety ” at the present 
time. 

This reason is found in the fact, that the work is 
one of which we stand in great need, both on ac- 
count of the tendency to exaggerate the import- 
ance of Unity, and the great prevalence of a neg- 
lect to discover wherein essential Unity consists. 
Many, in these days, would purchase Unity with a 
dead uniformity, which is the Unity of the sands 
upon the seashore. Yet, while thoughtful men will 
be justified in seeking more and more for external 
signs of Unity, will they not, after all, in their best 
moments, think less of the outward and visible 
sign, than of the thing signified ? The tendency of 


Preface . 

“Unity in Variety ” is at least in this direction, 
and, in the present divided and troubled condition 
of Christian Society, many will find it full of hope- 
ful and assuring suggestions; suggestions, too, 
which will prove none the less acceptable, on ac- 
count of their presentation in a clear, vigorous, and 
graceful style. 

With these too -insufficient words of praise, 
“ Unity in Variety ” is sent forth on its beneficent 
mission to the American public, accompanied by 
the prayer that it may prove an olive-branch of 
Peace. 

New-Yoek: Advent 1871. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER PAGE 

Preface 7 

L Introductory Chapter — The Nature of Unity. 19 

II. One Plan, many Forms 26 

m. The study of Natural Science in no way ad- 
verse to True Religion 33 

IV. The Constitution of the Human Mind 45 

Y. The Inspired History of Religion 53 

VI. The Evidence of the Divine Arrangement 67 

Vn. The different Administrations of Religion co- 
existing in the earthly days of our 

Blessed Redeemer 76 

YHE. The healthy results of these Independent Ad- 
ministrations 86 v /- 

IX. The argument of Unity in Variety deduced 

from the general resemblance of the 
Bible to the structure of the Earth on 
which we reside 92 

X. Unity in Variety illustrated by the Frame- J 

work of Redemption 100 

XI. The Conflict of Opinion in other departments 

of knowledge besides Religion 107 

( 5 ) 


6 


Contents. 


XII. The Language of Flowers on the subject of 


Unity in Variety 115 

XHL The Archetype and its Modifications 131 

^ XIV. Unity of Principle amid Variety of Adminis- 
trations 147 

XV. Unity in Charity 165 

XVI. Unity in Error 182 

XVII. Instance of Analogy between Revealed Truth 

and the Course of Nature — the Ammo- 
nite and the Nautilus 187 

XVIII. Concluding Chapter 194 

Appendix 211 


PBEFAOE. 


I T is not by any means encouraging to an Au- 
thor to feel that he is bestowing both time 
and labor upon an unpopular subject. This is 
especially depressing when he knows, before he 
sits down to write, that many of his readers will 
have but little sympathy with the principle which 
it is his object to discuss. 

The Author of the following pages is devotedly 
attached to his own administration of Religion. 
He believes, devoutly, that the Church of Eng- 
land is more in accordance with the nature of 
man, the Scriptures of God, the structure of so- 
ciety, and the Apostolic model than any other 
upon this earth. He admires her enlarged 
moderation, and her distinct acknowledgment of 
“ the Holy Church universal throughout the 
world.” He would apply to her Liturgy, her for- 

( 7 ) 


8 Preface. 

mularies, and her system generally, the words of 
the poet — 

“ Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull, 

Strong without rage, without o’erflowing full.” 

And, though he may doubtless be reminded of 
Apostolical succession, Episcopal ordination, 
hereditary authority, and antique resemblance — 
and he is glad of these things so far as they go — 
yet, when he has the honesty lo examine the real 
facts of the case, as they are placed before him in 
the Word and in the Works of G-od, and when he 
compares them with such examples as he sees 
around him in the Church and in the World — he 
is compelled, in spite of all his ecclesiastical pre- 
possessions, to come to the double-edged conclu- 
sion, that “ there are differences of adminstrations 
but the same Lord.” * 

An eye for what is good in other forms of faith, 
is not inconsistent with the most zealous attach- 
ment for our own. At all events, the effort to 
find out where Christians may occupy common 
ground, is infinitely better than to look on with 
indifference, or, perhaps hostility, while the dis- 
tracted Church presents the sad spectacle of 
* 1 Cor. xii. 5. 


Preface. 


9 


Samson’s foxes howling through the corn-fields, 
the vineyards, and the olive groves, tied tail to 
tail, with firebrands between ! 

There is a shallow, and it is to be feared a 
somewhat popular opinion, that provided a man 
believe nothing contrary to Revealed Truth, it is 
of very little consequence what he may believe in 
reference to the Divine workmanship in our 
planet. Now, assuming that the Author of 
Nature, and of Revelation, be one and the same, 
it must be evident that the analogy of Nature 
cannot be at variance with Revealed Truth. And, 
therefore, if any theory be adopted in reference to 
the work of Creation which would not harmonize 
with the work of Redemption, that theory cannot 
be a matter of indifference. Our Blessed Lord 
says, “ My Father worketh hitherto and I work.” 
If the work of the Saviour be as nearly allied to 
the work of the Creator as the relationship in 
these words would appear to intimate, there must 
be a general resemblance between the agency of 
Nature and of Grace. There must be a family 
likeness between the great principles which con- 
stitute their leading features, a uniformity which 


io Preface. 

renders them fit to illustrate, and be illustrated by 
each other. 

It may be well, however, to bear in mind what 
the Bible was intended to teach us, or, rather 
what it was not intended to teach us. The Bible 
was not written to teach us the motions of the 
stars, or the natural history of the Earth, or the 
rules of criticism, or the details of history. It 
was intended to teach us “ the one thing needful” 
And, so intent is its real Author upon this its real 
object, that while the meanest and minutest cir- 
cumstance connected with that one thing , is fully 
and clearly noticed, the mighty Monarchs, and the 
splendid Empires of the surrounding world are 
passed by in almost total silence, unless when 
their edges happen to come in contact with the 
history of God’s Glory and man’s salvation, after 
which they sink back into the obscurity out of 
which they had emerged for a moment. The 
main object of the Divine Spirit, was, to place our 
Peace, and Hope, and Holiness, in every stage of 
its growth, distinctly before our eyes. And, this 
He has done in the most brilliant evidence that 
ever was presented to the mind of man. 

Another mistake into which persons are some- 


times apt to fall in reference to the Bible, is, to 
imagine that the expressions applied to the works 
of Creation are to be taken in their Strictly literal 
meaning. Now, it should be remembered, that 
the language of the Bible is not the language of 
science, but of common sense. And is it not well 
for mankind that it is so ? For, if it were writ- 
ten in the technical phraseology of science, there 
would be very few comparatively to whom its 
language would be intelligible. Take, for in- 
stance, the descriptions of the sun, when it is 
said to “ rise ” and “ set,” or, as in the case of 
J oshua, where it is said miraculously to “ stand 
still.” These words convey to every human crea- 
ture on the surface of the globe the very same 
idea. Whether he be a New Zealander, or an 
inhabitant of Labrador, or of England, or of the 
Caucasus, all are agreed on the fact which appeals 
directly to their senses, and for all practical pur- 
poses this is quite sufficient. But, if the real 
state of the case were scientifically put before 
them, it is not too much to affirm, that, with few 
exceptions, as in the case of learned men, all the 
rest of the world could not possibly understand, 
much less believe the facts when clothed in the 


Preface. 


1 2 

garb of science. This was not the object of the 
Bible, and hence the sacred writers adopted the 
current phraseology, and in the current popular 
meaning, whenever they had occasion to allude to 
natural phenomena. 

To make known the One, and all-sufficient 
Atonement for the sins of a world in wickedness, 
was the primary object of the Bible. Hence 
Natural Science does not form any direct depart- 
ment of Revealed Truth. Beyond certain general 
statements, in reference to the formation of Man 
and Mattery we have no special information to 
guide us on the subject. 

To point out a few instances in which this 
analogy presents itself, is the object of the Writer 
in the following pages. He, who, in the riches of 
transcendent wisdom, constructed the Gospel of 
the Grace of God, is also the Author of Nature, of 
Providence, and of Society. And in coming from 
our minds, they form kindred portions of one 
great whole. Thus, instead of being antagonists 
they are proofs and illustrations of each other, 
and of the variegated goodness of God. Truth can 
never be opposed to truth. And those who know 


Preface , 


13 


the truth of God, may look with calmness upon 
the discovery of every other truth. 

It has been well observed by an eminent Phi- 
losopher, that if a man were required to write a 
treatise, upon such an apparently common-place 
topic as that of a single leaf he would be obliged, 
before his task were finished, to travel through 
the whole circle of the sciences. It is, therefore, 
hardly necessary to observe, that the subject-mat- 
ter in this Essay is merely suggestive. 

A few words may be necessary, by way of expla- 
nation, as regards the motto, “Mobilis Con- 
stanti a.” The Author is indebted for it to the 
kindness of Professor Selwyn. The words occur 
in Lord Bacon’s writings. They are the very last 
words in the “ Thema Coeli,” where they stand at 
the end of the sentence thus : “ MobilemConstan- 
tiam.” In the old editions of Bacon, the word 
was wrongly printed “ Nobilem,” until the error 
was pointed out by Mr. Leslie Ellis. The late 
Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, Dr. Whe- 
well, noticed the change as a happy emendation 
by Mr. Ellis. The word Nobilem was quite un- 
suited to the context. Dr. Whewell translates 
them, “A constancy which includes motion.” 


1 4 Preface . 

Professor Selwyn suggests the idea of “ Constancy 
in the main, with variation in detail,” like the sea, 
which is constant to a mean height, at any one 
spot, but fluctuates above and below the mean, 
daily and hourly. Thus, the rendering of the 
words would be, as Mr. Ellis translates them, 
“Variable constancy.” The same idea has thus 
been eloquently expressed by Playfair, in the 
Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory, sec. 374: 
“Amid all the revolutions of the globe, the eco- 
nomy of Nature has been uniform, and her laws 
are the only things that have resisted the general 
movement. The rivers and the rocks, the seas 
and the continents, have been changed in all their 
parts : but the laws which direct these changes, 
and the rules to which they are subject, have 
remained invariably the same.” 

The reference to the word “Mobilis,” in the 
Edinburgh Review* may here find an appropriate 
insertion: “In the ‘ Thema Coeli,’ f (says Dr. 
Whewell) after stating the conclusions which he 
(Lord Bacon) thinks most probable with regard 
to the motions and revolutions of the heavenly 

* October, 1857, p. 318. 

f “ Vol. iii. 750,”— reference of page is intended for 780. 


Preface . 


i5 


bodies, Bacon adds : ‘ But we protest that we are 
not bound to these opinions. We are sure of our 

way; we are not sure of our place.’ * Ita- 

que tenebimus quemadmodum coelestia solent 
(quandodeiissermo sit) constantiam — ‘Nobilem,’ 
say the editions, and so says the English trans- 
lation, ‘ a noble constancy.’ But it is plain, that 
Bacon is professing that his constancy implies 
a liability to change. He is in a definite path — 
but, this is not to prevent his moving ; and in 
this he is like the heavenly bodies of which he is 
speaking. Bead, then, says Mr. Ellis, ‘Cfonstan- 
tiam Mobilem ;’ a constancy which includes 
motion ; and we have an antithesis entirely in 
Bacon’s manner. We conceive there can be no 
doubt of the reality, and the truth, of this elegant 
and sagacious emendation.” 

Under the shadow of these great names, the 
Author may fairly consider himself justified in 
adopting those suggestive words as the pith and 
marrow of what he endeavors to illustrate under 
the title — Unity in Variety. The same idea, under 

■* “I will preserve, therefore, even as the heavenly 
bodies themselves do, (since it is of them I am discussing') 
a variable constancy .” — See Ellis & Spedding’s Edition , Yol. 
v. p. 558. 


i6 


Preface. 


a different form, is thus expressed by the author 
of the “Thema Cceli “If they had consulted 
Nature, they would have found, that while motion, 
orderly and uniform , is in a perfect circle, motion 
orderly but multiform , such as is found in many 
heavenly bodies, is in other lines.” 

In conclusion, the Author would only add that 
he entered upon the subject of this book with 
hesitation, and he has pursued it with diffidence. 
The idea of Unity in Variety is a grand one, and 
is worthy of a better fate than that which it is 
likely to meet with at the Author’s hands. But, 
by way of apology, he can only say : “ These 
things have I in all sincerity and simplicity set 
down, touching the controversies which now 
trouble the Church of England : and that without 
all art and insinuation, and therefore not like to 
be grateful to either part. Notwithstanding, I 
trust what hath been said shall find a correspond- 
ence in their minds which are not embarked in 
partiality, and which love the whole better than 
a part. "Wherefore I am not out of hope that 
it may do good ; at the least, I shall not repent 
myself of the meditation.”* 

* Bacon on Church Controversies. 


MOBILIS CONSTANTLY. 


2 










UNITY IN VARIETY 


AS IT APPEARS IN 

THE DIVINE WORKMANSHIP IN OUR PLANET. 


INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

T HE Unity which is advocated in the follow- 
ing pages, is not, the Unity of party, in the 
bond of selfishness, nor, of ignorance, in the 
bond of subjection, nor, of bigotry, in the bond 
of hatred. No. It is “ the Unity of the Spirit, 
in the bond of peace.” 

In urging the claims of the OathoHcity of 
true Religion, it is needless to remark, that 
the Author by no means wishes to counte- 
nance anything approaching that “ contanker- 
ous ” spirit of schism, engendered by a selfish 
desire — Demas-like — to obtain carnal pre-emi- 
nence in the Church of God. 


(19) 


20 


Unity in Variety. 


That conflict of opinion between rival parties, 
which leads to spiritual anarchy and confusion, 
cannot be too strongly reprobated by all who 
really desire to emulate the simplicity and 
godly sincerity of the early Christian commu- 
nities. 

The Catholic principle of the believing people 
of God, may be briefly defined, as, attachment 
to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Living Head of 
the Church, and, its eternal consequence, 
attachment to each other. 

Better than all our rivalry and strife — far 
better than their common result among men — 
— indifference — that, like ships becalmed at 
sea, when a religious breeze stirs our hearts, 
we should raise aloft our fair white sails, and 
come into port together, lowering them in the 
haven of the One true Church.* 

That true Church, in the comprehensive 
language of our Anglican Liturgy, embraces 
“ the blessed company of all faithful people.” 
The Catholic church has been so well defined 


Blackburn’s Normandie Picturesque. 


2 I 


Unity in Variety. 

by the Great Apostle of the Gentiles, that the 
wonder is, how anyone can be at a loss to under- 
stand its meaning. St. Peter, speaking under 
the immediate guidance of the Holy Ghost, 
says, “ Of a truth I perceive that God is no 
respecter of persons, but, in every nation he 
who fears God, and works righteousness is 
accepted of Him.” Thus, we see, that the 
Church of God, is not now confined to any fixed 
locality, or, to any exclusive religious corpora- 
tion, hedged in by mechanical forms, or 
boundaries of man’s creation. Our Redeemer 
forewarned His disciples against such a narrow 
and contracted view. “ And then, if any man 
shall say unto you, lo ! here is Christ, or, lo ! 
He is there, believe him not. Behold the king- 
dom of God is within you.” Words cannot more 
plainly declare, that there is, now, no one place 
more sacred than another, as in the olden days 
of the Jewish dispensation. Is is not, now, so 
much the position, as, the dis-position of the 
worshipper, to which our chief attention should 
be directed. “ It is neither in this mountain, 
nor yet, at Jerusalem. The hour cometh and 


22 


Unity in Variety . 


now is, when the true worshippers shall worship 
the Father in spirit and in truth.”* 

The idea is thus expressed by an eminent 
French writer : — 

“Eh ! qu’importe une terre ou riante ou maudite 
Ce ne sont pas les lieux mais le coeur qu’on habite 
Le coeur de notre sort cet arbitre eternel 
Qui fait un ciel de Tenter et de l’enfer un ciel.” 

To account for the technical reference to 
Natural Science in these pages, it may not be 
altogether out of place to observe, that the 
Author, in order to be able to avail himself of 
arguments derived from that source, adopted 
the practical expedient of enrolling his name 
as a student in the Medical School attached 
to the University of Cambridge. 

Although fully conscious of the limited and 
imperfect nature of the knowledge thus acquired, 
still, it may be sufficient to afford an insight, 
however feeble, into the laws, and principles, 
of the Divine Workmanship in our planet. 

There are certain easy generalities, accessible 
to every one conversant with Natural History. 

* John iv. 23. 


23 


Unity in Variety . 

These have been introduced into the subject 
here discussed. They are intended to serve 
as illustrations of that beautiful arrangement 
existing in all the works of God, whether in 
Creation or Redemption — in Nature or in 
Grace. 

It will be found, that there is, as it were, a 
family likeness in all the operations of the 
Divine handywork. And to suppose that the 
Church of God should prove the only exception 
to this general law, would be to place the Church 
alone, of all the Almighty’s works, in the gloom 
of a sunless atmosphere. 

The Divine wisdom, and loving kindness, 
which have enriched our planet in every 
department of its diversified materials, from the 
naked surface of the primaeval granite, to the 
exquisite beauty and coloring of the landscape, 
are evidences of the adaptation of the law of 
Unity of Plan , to an endless Variety of Form. 

Some points in the argument are based upon 
admitted facts, of which, in certain instances, 
the Author is indebted to the learned Profes- 
sors at whose feet he has had the pleasure of 


24 


Unity in Variety . 


sitting for instruction — men whose accuracy 
of thought, and range of study, render them 
competent to form an opinion upon the subject 
of their special departments. These learned 
Professors did not, by any means, intend 
directly to illustrate Scripture truths. But 
the Author’s object in listening to them, was, 
to gather such facts as might enable him to do 
so — to pick up, in the Schools of Natural 
Science, illustrations, to help to explain the 
important, but sadly misunderstood subject of 
Unity. 

At a time when the “ Union of Christen- 
dom” is so keenly discussed, by earnest- 
minded men of all parties, — when Dogmatic 
utterances are daily exhibiting the tendency 
of religious thought upon the subject of the 
“ One true Church ” — the true ideal of Chris- 
tian Unity, is a topic essentially in keeping 
with the spirit of the age, and the general drift 
of theological inquiry. 

The solution of the problem, however, is not 
by any means confined to the Schools of Divin- 
ity. Physiologists are quite as anxiously occu- 


Unity in Variety. 


25 


pied in the pursuit, from their own point of 
view, and, it is to be feared that even master 
minds in the world of science, can indulge, 
when occasion arises, in Dogmatism, almost if 
not altogether as arbitrary as that exercised by 
their twin brethren in the Church. Thus the 
“Two Theologies” exhibit their respective 
“ odium. ” All this is wrong. It is not Unity 
in Uniformity, but Unity in Variety, that is 
put before us in the two kingdoms of Nature 
and of Grace. The Word, and the Works, of 
God abound in illustrations, as beautiful as they 
are countless, of this great truth ; and, if the 
Author should succeed in calling attention to the 
subject, in the plan which he has traced out, 
he will be glad to think that his labor shall 
not have been altogether in vain. 

“From Nature’s chain whatever link we strike — 

Tenth, or tenth thousand, breaks the chain alike.” 


CHAPTER II. 


“Dico ch’ ogni virtu principalmente 
Yien da una radice.” — Dante. 

T TTR more closely we examine the Creations 
of God — the remains of past ages, or the 
living forms of onr own — the more clearly we 
shall perceive that the plan is Unity , and the 
form Variety , — the one indicating the same 
Almighty mind, the other that boundless be- 
nevolence which knows no rest till in every 
possible combination it has produced every con- 
ceivable form of beauty, existence, and enjoy- 
ment. When we look at the works of Creation 
around us, or read the history of Redemption 
in the Bible, the first thing that strikes us is the 
variety of forms in the one, and the diversity of 
modes of worship in the other. But when we 
come to examine things more closely — when tlie 
eye of science is directed to the works of the 
Creator, and the eye of faith to that of the 
( 26 ) 


27 


Unity in Variety . 

Saviour — when we strip off the superficial 
covering, we find that these diversities are only 
apparent. The groundwork is simple and uni- 
form throughout both. The external variations 
are adapted to the different conditions of ex- 
istence in the one instance, and to the varying 
circumstances of God’s people in the other. 
And thus we arrive at the interesting and im- 
portant principle of Unity of plan and purpose 
emerging from apparent contradiction and 
confusion. 

On observing the framework of Creation, we 
are astonished at the endless diversity of forms 
and existences of which it is composed. No 
two things appear to be exactly alike — no two 
leaves — no two drops of water — no two flow T ers 
— no two faces, of either man or beast, are 
in all respects coincident. The productions of 
Nature are so dissimilar that we might almost 
fancy that they were created by different 
orders of beings. But when we view them 
attentively — when we become better acquainted 
with their structures, their functions and their 
movements — it appears perfectly plain that 


28 Unity in Variety . 

they were all formed upon the same plan, sub- 
jected to the same laws, and have emanated 
from the same Almighty mind. For example : 
Nothing can at first sight appear more dissi- 
milar than those shining little points called 
“planets,” which wander through the starry 
sky, and the huge, dark, solid, and apparently 
immovable mass of matter on which we reside. 
They are so dissimilar that for thousands of 
years no person suspected any resemblance 
between them. Yet it is now ascertained be- 
yond dispute, that they are constructed in the 
same manner, subjected to the same laws — sim- 
ilar in their nature, their functions and their 
movements — thus proving that they have pro- 
ceeded from the same Almighty hand. 

The following are some of the points of 
resemblance. The earth and the planets are 
both globular bodies. They are both illumi- 
nated by the same great light. They both 
turn round upon themselves, producing day 
and night. They are both carried round the 
sun, thus making years, which differ only in 
length. Their axes are inclined to the plane 


29 


Unity in Variety. 

of tlie orbit in which they move, and conse- 
quently they have their springs, their summers, 
their autumns, and their winters. Some of them, 
we know, enjoy the same advantages from their 
atmosphere that we do, and, were we nearer to 
these bodies, we should undoubtedly perceive 
many other points of similarity. This tends to 
supply an illustration of Unity of plan, and 
purpose, emerging, from what at first sight 
appears to be irreconcilable diversity and 
confusion. In our own globe the case is still 
clearer. New countries are continually being 
discovered, but the old laws of Nature are 
always found in them. We meet new plants 
and animals, but always possessing the same 
general properties and formed upon the same 
general model. We never get amongst such 
original or totally different modes of existence, 
as to indicate that we are come into the 
province of a different Creator, or under the 
direction of a different will. In fact the same 
order of things attends us wherever we go. 
The stone falls — the sun shines — the air moves 
— the tides flow — the blood circulates — and in 


30 Unity in Variety. 

its v£st and quiet solemnity, the vaulted and 
spangled sky hangs over us. In fact wherever 
we stand in the glorious Creation of God, we 
see such a general resemblance emerging from 
apparent diversity, and expressing such uni- 
formity of plan, that we are compelled to acknowl- 
edge the same Divine footprints in every corner 
of Creation. 

The inspection and comparison of animated 
beings gives additional strength to this con- 
clusion. Of all large terrestrial animals, 
however different in form, the structure is very 
much alike — their natural functions and 
passions nearly the same — the vital organs 
nearly the same, both in substance, shape, and 
office. Digestion, nutrition, circulation, and 
secretion go on in a similar manner, and the 
solid groundwork, or skeleton, is plainly made 
upon the same general model. For example, 
scarcely anything can appear more unlike than 
the wing of the bat, the hoof of the horse, 
the paddle of a whale, and the human hand. 
But when the integuments are stripped off, 
when the number and order of the solid parts 


3i 


Unity in Variety . 

are examined, when they are subjected to the 
view of Comparative Anatomy, they are found 
to consist of the bones of the human hand 
arranged in precisely the same order, and merely 
lengthened, expanded, or otherwise modified, 
to suit the flying, swimming, or pounding 
motions of the several creatures, and elements 
to which they belong. And this law of Unity 
of plan prevails not less universally throughout 
the various races of extinct creatures, whose 
fossil remains are found embedded in the earth. 
The harmony of structure, and design, is so 
complete, that from the character of a single 
limb, or even of a single tooth, or bone, the 
Comparative Anatomist is able to determine 
the size and proportions of the other bones — 
the external form and figure of the body — the 
food, habits, and mode of life, of creatures that 
have long ceased to exist upon the surface of 
the planet. In a word— whether we discover 
new countries, or penetrate into distant ages — 
whether we examine the sparkling heavens, or 
the mass of matter on which we reside — in 
every part we find stamped upon the framework 


32 Unity in Variety . 

of Creation, a Unity of plan and purpose, 
emerging from apparent diversity and con- 
fusion — indicating tlie same Almighty Creator, 
and unconsciously illustrating the simple, but 
comprehensive truth of — Unity in Variety, 


CHAPTER III. 


“ Thus, when He viewed the many forms of Nature, 

He said, that all was good, and bless’ d the fair variety.” 

Tragedy of Tamerlane. 

T HE sum and substance of all science may be 
condensed into two short sentences. One 
is, that “ Order is Heaven’s first law” — the 
other, that everything serves a special end. 
These axioms have been expressed by the two 
words, Homology, and Teleology. Homology is 
the science which treats of the first, and Teleo- 
logy of the second. A homologue is defined as 
the same organ in different animals under every 
variety of form and function. For example, the 
arms and feet of man, the fore and hind feet of 
quadrupeds, the wings and feet of birds, and 
the fins of fishes, are said to be homologous. 
As every organic object is constructed after a 
type, so it is also made to accomplish a final 
cause, or special end. The science which treats 
3 (33) 


34 


Unity hi Variety . 


of the relations of means and ends is called 
Teleology. Carbon is an instance. “ Carbon 
(sajs Faraday) possesses every quality to render 
it adapted to its intended uses. Not one pro- 
perty, however seemingly unimportant, could 
be added, or, taken away, without destroying the 
whole harmonious scheme of Nature, devised 
with such wisdom, maintained with such care.” 
The recent discoveries in regard to the homology 
of parts, the advances in the science of Compa- 
rative Anatomy, and Morphological* Botany, 
place Natural Theology on a line with the 
parallel progress of the age. There are facts 
aud natural phenomena now brought to light 
of which Paley, in his day, knew absolutely 
nothing. Does it not seem somewhat anoma- 
lous, that theologians, who ought ever to occupy 
the forefront in the onward march of that 
knowledge, which adds so much freshness 
and beauty to the Word and the Works of 

* Morphology is the study of the forms which the different 
organs of plants assume, and the laws which regulate their 
changes. 


Unity in Variety. 35 

God, should be frequently found not only in the 
rear, but positively at a stand-still ? * 

A baseless superstition, that knows the weak- 
ness of its own foundations, and that fears to 
have them exposed, may justly shudder at the 
progress of the human mind. The instinct of 
self-preservation is upon her. Deriving her 
grandeur from the surrounding obscurity, she 
instinctively dislikes, and denounces any kind 
of light in her neighborhood. But true religion 
has nothing to fear from knowledge, or free 
inquiry. It is a spirit of light, liberty, and 
love ; and it is important for those who profess 
to be religious, to breathe a little of these 
blessings out. The wonders of Nature, and 
the discoveries of science, are not in any way 
opposed to true religion. In themselves they 
are no evidences of increasing corruption — no 
symptoms of approaching judgment. There is, 
therefore, no reason why we should scowl at 
them, nor is it meet that the Church of God 
should be afraid of these things. He, who, in 
the riches of transcendent wisdom, constructed 
* See Appendix, Note A. 


36 Unity in Variety . 

the Gospel of the Grace of God, is also the 
author of Nature, of Providence, and of Society ; 
and coining from our minds they form kindred 
portions of one great whole, so that instead of 
being antagonists, they are proofs and illustra- 
tions of each other, and of the variegated good- 
ness of God. Religion does not court the 
grandeur of exclusive solitude. Her origin is 
proof against all injury from the development 
of those truths which the Great Father of All 
has stamped upon the framework of visible 
Creation. Our heart’s desire is, that men 
should walk round about Zion, count well her 
bulwarks, and examine her foundations in the 
noonday blaze of the meridian summer’s sun. 
Challenging the scrutiny of the Greater Light, 
we can afford to look with calmness upon the 
discovery of every other, and to prize it to the 
full extent of its value. Let us bring to the 
inquiry a large and generous spirit, suited to 
the glad tidings of the Gospel, the conscious 
security of the Church of God, and, above all, 
the example of Him, who admired the “ lilies 
of the field.” Let us have the kind and joyful 


Unity in Variety. 


37 


recognition of whatsoever things are true, and 
whatsoever things are lovely, and it will be 
found that the established facts of science, and 
the most brilliant discoveries in natural history, 
will only tend to make us join in the chorus of 
the Psalmist, when he beheld the boundless 
horizon of God’s immeasurable glory, and gave 
vent to the irrepressible language of his heart, 
— “ O Lord, how manifold are Thy works. In 
wisdom hast Thou made them all. The earth 
is full of Thy riches.” Wherever, and when- 
ever this minor admiration be refused, we may 
rest assured that in that mind narrowness of 
temper, or policy, has been sinfully allowed to 
interfere with the genuine and nobler workings 
of the Spirit of Grace. 

We should never forget that the testimony of 
the Scripture itself goes to prove that the gross 
corruptions of God’s ancient people were, in 
some degree, traceable to the fact that “ they 
regarded not the Works of the Lord, nor the 
operations of His hands.” They gave them- 
selves up to sensuality, and degraded them- 


38 


Unity in Variety . 


selves* at a time when they ought to have been 
more than ordinarily sensible of the Divine 
goodness. And although we freely admit that 
the study of Nature, of itself, cannot bind back 
the soul to its Almighty Maker, there is no 
doubt whatever that it has a* wonderful influence 
in civilizing and refining the grosser elements 
of our mortal clay, while it begets an elevation 
of thought, which may prepare us to wait for 
the more valuable disclosures of that loving 
Father, who alone can satisfy the longings and 
yearnings of the heart. When we study Nature, 
with the lamp of Divine revelation in our 
hands, and the spirit of prayer in our hearts, 
we cannot go seriously astray. Nature, under 
such circumstances, never deceives us. It is 
only when men of half ignorance, and half 
conceit, presume to dogmatize on the unsolved 
problems of Creation that danger is likely to 
arise. The true student of physical science is 
always unassuming, because he is always con- 
scious of the difficulties which surround him. 
Men like Faraday, and Newton, contrast 


Isaiali i. 


Unity in Variety. 


39 


favourably with La Place, and the ingenious 
speculators of his school. It is easy to under- 
stand how the natural bias of our fallen nature 
may receive additional impetus by unsanctified 
knowledge in the direction opposite to God. 
Mere knowledge “puffeth up.” There is a 
glorious era yet in store for the renewed man, 
when the intellect and the emotions will be so 
evenly balanced that we shall not be in danger 
of giving too much thought, and too little feel- 
ing, to the contemplation of the works of God. 
Every true lover of Nature must, more or less, 
sympathize with the great Swedish Naturalist, 
when, bewildered, as it were, with excess of 
feeling, he went down on his knees and thanked 
God for having allowed him to see an English 
moor covered with broom in full blossom.* 
How many thousands, annually, are permitted 
to behold a similar sight without, perhaps, the 
faintest trace of gratitude or praise? If men 
could only see the endless beauty and variety, 
which on every side surround them, they would 
find even in the despised weed, “a body of 
* See Heard's Tripartite Nature , p. 321. 


40 Unity in Variety . 

Divinity,” which has no place in the dusty and 
worm-eaten volumes of the Greek and Latin 
fathers! Students of theology, whose minds 
are often diseased by over-study, would find 
an agreeable and instructive variety of labor, if 
they were, occasionally, to go forth, hammer in 
hand, and examine the silent stones of witness 
on some mountain range, or wander among 
the wild flowers in quiet haunts, and there, “ con- 
sider the lilies, how they grow” — or better 
still, take up the scalpel, and trace out the ex- 
quisite arrangements of the wise Master Builder, 
in the fearfully and wonderfully constructed 
framework of our earthly tabernacle. While 
thus following the footprints of the Creator, 
they would meet, at every step, the purest 
pleasures. They would find “ tongues in trees, 
sermons in stones, books in the running brooks, 
and good in everything.” 

Happily, the day is gone by when an apology 
is necessary for the study of Natural Science 
in connection with Religion. The time was, 
however, when a reference even to the Bridge- 
water Treatise of Chalmers, was hardly safe 


4i 


Unity in Variety . 

before an audience of a certain exclusive caste 
of thought. It may not be out of place to 
mention, that there are persons still living in 
Scotland who can remember the attack that 
was directed by a certain section of the clergy 
against the introduction of winnowing machines. 
These worthy men professed to believe that the 
use of machinery in husbandry was contrary to 
the Divine judgment originally passed upon our 
fallen race. In consequence of this, the unhal- 
lowed soubriquet of “ Devil’s windmills ” was 
affixed to the new inventions, because they 
were supposed to be chiefly aimed at the 
abolition of the original decree, in favor of 
manual labor pure and simple. 

The author was in Edinburgh, when the 
controversy about Chloroform was carried on, 
by some of the clergy on the one hand, and the 
late Sir James Simpson on the other. From 
pulpit, platform, and press, arguments were 
brought to bear against this merciful anaesthetic, 
and its alleged heretical advocate. In self- 
defence, the Professor undertook to justify his 
conduct. He met these clergymen on their 


42 


Unity in Variety. 

own ground — the Bible — and the subsequent 
success of this almost divine remedy has tri- 
umphantly vindicated the application of science, 
and refuted the crude absurdity of calling it 
“ a godless innovation.” 

To go further back, we come upon the some- 
what similar misfortunes of poor Ambrose Pare, 
the medical monk, wbo first suggested the use 
of ligatures in taking up an artery, instead of 
the old-fashioned, and barbarous, custom of the 
actual cautery, and boiling pitch ! The leaders 
of religious opinion, falsely so called, would 
not hear of such an alteration, and, accordingly, 
Ambrose Pare had to experience the penalty 
attached to every one who ventures, without 
permission, to wander beyond the trodden 
path ! 

These are a few instances, out of many, of 
the narrowness of mind, and prejudice founded 
upon ignorance, which men sometimes exhibit 
when they attempt to resist the progress of true 
science, by calling its patrons by hard names, 
and heaping upon them shallow and injurious 
imputations. Such treatment renders the ex- 


43 


Unity in Variety. 

pression of opinion a somewhat dangerous, if 
not an expensive luxury. How differently St. 
Paul acted. He stood aloof from all paltry 
hindrances. His eye was clear, and large, and 
single. He looked around him with the unfet- 
tered expansion of Christian love. And at the 
very moment when his heart is swelling with 
the power of godliness, and the immensity of 
its value — in the very sentence in which he 
claims for it the distinctive character that is 
impressed upon it as God’s workmanship, he 
fully and freely acknowledges that man’s work 
“profiteth a little.” This is the true Catholic 
spirit. It teaches us to denounce, with scru- 
pulous fidelity, the slightest shadow of deviation 
from the simple Gospel of Christ ; while it leaves 
us free to recognize, with generous approval, 
whatsoever is true in the theology, and useful 
in the systems and churches, however remote 
from our own. 

Now, let us apply these principles to a 
particular case. If the facts presented to us in 
the kingdom of Nature have their counterpart 
in the kingdom of Grace, then we should expect 


44 


Unity in Variety . 


to find in the Church of God a Unity of plan 
adapted to a Variety of form. 

So far as we know, there is but one eccle- 
siastical corporation on earth which arrogates 
to itself the exclusive prerogative of being “ the 
Holy Catholic and Apostolic Eoman Church, 
the Mother and Mistress of all Churches, out 
of which none can be saved.” Let us, then, 
analyze this proposition, and see to what con- 
clusion it will ultimately lead us. 

As the object of this book is not polemical, 
it is hoped that the reader will view, with 
calmness, the verdict which the voice of reason, 
the promptings of instinct, and the light of truth 
have pronounced on the excrescences of that 
Church ; and that the impartial student of 
Ecclesiastical history will be pleased to discover 
some apology for the errors he justly condemns, 
in the circumstances by which they were pro- 
duced. We trust that he will also recognize 
the higher attributes of Candor and Christian 
Charity in the further illustration of the 
argument. 


CHAPTER IV. 


UNITY IN VARIETY EXEMPLIFIED BY THE CONSTITU- 
TION OF THE HUMAN MIND. 

“ Facies non omnibus una ; 

Nec diversa tamen 

Ovid. Metamorph, B. ii. L. 13. 
“All have not the same features, 

And yet they are not altogether different.” 

T HE various modes of Christian worship 
that exist in the world, and the unpleasing 
spectacle of rival religious parties, in conflict 
with each other, constitute one of the “ offences ” 
■which disfigure the external surface of the 
Church, and tend to keep the careless and the 
thoughtless at a distance from Divine Truth. 
When men of this class see the disputes, the 
dissensions, the controversies, the lawsuits, the 
animosities of hostile churches ; and the evi- 
dent selfishness and ill-feeling which so often 
emerge from the contest, they are apt to 

(45) 


46 Unity in Variety. 

imagine, either that there is no such thing as 
religious truth, or that it is not worth looking 
for, or that it is impracticable to arrive at it. 
The spirit of religious indifference is thereby 
strengthened and augmented, and a large and 
intelligent body of professing Christians are 
tempted to sit down, like Gallio, and to “ care 
for none of these things.” 

Distracted as it were by opposite forces, 
they continually halt between two opinions — 
suspecting vital godliness, yet shrinking from 
the idea of open infidelity, they are content to 
live in a state of vibration, between the brink 
of the “ fountain,” and the edge of the chasm. 
A mere touch, in one direction, might send 
them among the “ living waters,” a mere touch 
in the other, might push them over the eternal 
precipice. 

A portion — and it is to be feared a very large 
portion — of the professing Christian world is in 
this state of mind. 

Let us, then, endeavor to remove this 
“ stumbling block” out of the way — to place 
“ the offence ” in the light of God’s word — to 


4 7 


Unity in Variety . 

show what is of human corruption, and what of 
Divine arrangement — to disentangle the wisdom 
of God from the weakness of man, and thus 
to turn a noxious apology for religious 
indifference, into a holy argument for religious 
belief. 

With this object, we now proceed to prove, 
that the various modes of Christian worship 
have their origin in, 

I. The Constitution of the Human Mind. 

II. Their illustration in the History of 
Inspired Religion, and 

III. Their Counterpart in the Divine 
Workmanship in our Planet. 

No one ever saw two faces that exactly re- 
sembled one another. It is far more difficult 
to find two human minds that see everything 
in the same light. The varieties of our mental 
structure are boundless, and these varieties 
give a peculiar shape and color to our opin- 
ions. We cannot induce men to think alike on 
everything. They will not consent to suppress 
their sentiments. There must, therefore, be con- 


48 Unity in Variety . 

tention and collision. That this does, indeed, 
arise from the nature, and the free action of 
the human mind, is evident from the fact, that 
it takes place in every department of knowl- 
edge, as well as in religion. In science, in 
literature, in law, in morals, in medicine, in pol- 
itics, even in the theory of light itself, there are 
little “ undulations ” of opinion, producing dif- 
ferences, and debate. In the substance of 
these things, all reflecting minds are agreed, 
but in the execution and the details, there is 
room for variety of opinion and variety of 
opinion takes place. For example : The two 
great parties that alternately sway the destiny 
of this Empire, are perfectly agreed about the 
value of law, and the nature of government, 
and the genius of the British Constitution. 
The one party, however, are all for change, 
and the other considers chauge an evil. This 
difference splits them into hostile ranks, and 
session after session finds them contending with 
all the dexterity, and, sometimes, with all the 
bitterness of hereditary rancor. No man of 
common sense denies the value of law, or of 


Unity in Variety . 


49 


government, or of the British Constitution, be- 
cause of this political wrangling. Nothing 
but Despotism can put a stop to it, and 
the magnitude of the interest justifies the 
keenness of the debate. Well, then, the mag- 
nitude of the interest contained in the Bible, 
cannot easily be exceeded, relating, as it does, 
to the danger of man, the salvation of God, the 
undying soul, and the eternal world. These 
mighty interests are calculated to produce the 
strongest, because the soundest state of excite- 
ment, and the Bible does nothing to prevent it. 
The Scriptures of God do not strike us dumb. 
They do not paralyze our mental and moral 
nature — the free, the pure, and the sparkling 
current of the human intellect. They do not 
engineer it into a muddy and an artificial pool ! 
No ! The picture of true religion in the Bible 
implies knowledge, freedom, activity, and enjoy- 
ment. It is represented as light to the eye- 
liberty to the soul — life from the dead. Its 
language is, “ I speak unto wise men, judge ye 
what I say.”* Again, “ Wherefore, be ye not 
* 1 Cor. x. 15. 

4 


5o 


Unity in Variety . 


unwise, but understanding what the will of the 
Lord is.”* Again, “ teaching and admonishing 
one another,” + and lastly, “Be ready always to 
give an answer to every man that asketh you a 
reason of the hope that is in you with meekness 
and fear.”J 

It is true, when God speaks plainly, there is 
no room for debate, but there are points on 
which He has not spoken. The Way of Salva- 
tion is plain, and has its echo in the human 
conscience, but there is no Catechism of opin- 
ions in the New Testament. There is no Book 
of Leviticus in the New Testament. There are 
hundreds of questions left under the guidance 
of general principles and regulations. And it 
were absurd to suppose, that men of every age, 
caste, and character, condition and constitution, 
should all embody those principles, without 
the slightest variation in their color or their 
form ! There is room, therefore, for variety of 
opinion, and the result is, that there are “ dif- 
ferences of administrations, but the same Lord.”! 

* Ephes. v. 17. f Coloss. iii. 16. f 1 Peter iii. 15. 

||1 Cor. xii. 6. 


Unity in Variety . 5i 

Now, there is no escaping this state of things, 
unless Divine Religion be placed at the foot of 
human depotism — unless we inhale the chloro- 
form of the Church of Rome, and deliver 
ourselves bound into the hands of her priest- 
hood, and allow them to drug us into a state of 
spiritual insensibility. Then, indeed, they may 
deal with us as they please. Bat, after all, the 
Church of Rome presents only the appearance 
of Unity. The surface may appear as unruffled 
as the stiff, cold, face of death, but under that 
surface there floats, in darkness, many serious 
and monstrous * forms of error, which the 
narcotic of superstition never fails to engender 
in the ignorant and the stagnant mind. The 
truth is, men’s differences arise from the imper- 
fection of their light, and the freedom of their 
agency. We, with our Bibles in our hands, 
endeavor to obtain the reality of religious union 
by increasing man’s light. The Church of 
Rome produces something like the appearance 
of it, by suppressing his free agency. 

If, then, anyone be offended at the conflict of 
* See Appendix, Note B. 


52 


Unity in Variety. 

opinion between rival churches, if he should 
find that it keeps him at a distance from vital 
godliness, if, on this account, he should be 
tempted to question the light, the purity, and 
the power of the Redeemer’s Gospel — lie ought 
to consider, that the real ground of his offence, 
is not the religion of God, but the framework 
of his own mind — the faculties which have a 
part of that mind, and which live and die with 
it. He should also recollect, that if he be really 
honest in his objection, he should use it against 
science, literature, law, morals, medicine, and 
politics, as well as against Religion. And we 
should never forget that until “ Re ” comes, in 
whose light we shall see light, there is no way 
of removing “ the offence,” but by suppressing, 
or suspending the mental and moral . nature 
with which our Creator has endowed us. In 
other words, the various modes of Christian 
worship have their origin in the constitution of 


man. 


CHAPTER V. 


“ God, working ever on a social plan, 

By various ties attaches man to man ; 

He made, at first, though free and unconfined, 
One man, the common Father of mankind.” 

“ That every tribe, though placed as He sees best, 
Where seas, or deserts part them from the rest ; 
Differing in language, manners, or in face, 
Might feel themselves allied to all the race.” 


Cowper. 


UNITY IN VARIETY AS SEEN IN THE INSPIRED 
HISTORY OF TRUE RELIGION. 

HEN we trace the history of true religion 



t T from its brilliant spark in Genesis, to its 
cloud of living glory in the book of the 
Apocalypse, we find nothing that resembles 
the universal authority, and the superficial 
uniformity of the Church of Borne. We find 
no assembly of believers, assuming to be the 
mother, and the mistress of all other assemblies. 
We find each patriarch administering to his 
own family, and tribe, without depending upon 


( 53) 


54 Unity in Variety . 

any other. We see Abel, sacrificing his lamb 
before “ the Cherubim ” and the “ flaming 
sword,” — Melcliisedeck offering bread and wine, 
as a memorial of the same transcendent mercy 
— Abraham suppressing the agency of his soul, 
before an altar of stones, and Job pouring forth 
his sorrows before God, without temple, or altar, 
or priest, or sacrifice. 

In the early history of religion it could not 
have been otherwise, because nothing was 
revealed but the substance and the emblem of 
the divine character and mercy. And it were 
against nature to suppose that Job in Arabia, 
Melcliisedeck at Salem, Abraham on Mount 
Moriah, and Abimelech at Gerar, should all 
express their sense of that mercy, in the same 
way, and with the same religious forms. 

This leads us to make a few remarks upon 
the real consistency of true religion, and the 
sort of evidence it presents to us. When we 
examine the several sections of the Bible, it 
will be found that the sum and substance of 
true religion consists, as it ought to do, in the 
gradual revelation of the same Almighty Saviour . 


55 


Unity in Variety. 

As time rolls on from Creation to Redemption, 
there is a growing discovery of His adorable 
nature, and mind, and character. But, in this 
increasing discovery, we are never brought to a 
pause by one part contradicting another. It is 
the wonderful property of the Bible that, though 
written by persons differing from each other in 
everything else, it is always consistent in its 
substance. It never withdraws any features of 
the divine character once advanced. It never 
adds a new one, without giving freshness and 
beauty to the old. In fact, in reading the 
history of the substance of true religion, we are 
always looking on the same landscape. The 
only difference is, that as the Day advances, 
more of the mist is rolled away from the horizon, 
and more of the magnificent surface comes 
distinctly into view. The difference between 
our religion and that of the Patriarchs, is just 
the difference between the moon, when she 
turns to us a thin crescent of her illuminated 
disc, and when, in the freshness of her beauty, 

“ She walks the calm blue firmament, 

Unveils her peerless light, and o’er the dark 
Her silver mantle throws.” Milton. 


56 


Unity in Variety . 


It is no new landscape on which we gaze as 
the green and yellow radiance illuminates the 
noble panorama. It is no new planet which 
comes travelling in its majesty, as the crescent 
swells into the circle, and the thread of light 
into the orb of burnished silver. And it is no 
fresh system of religion, that “ the Dayspring ” 
from on high has revealed to us. No ! It is 
the same landscape — it is the same planet — it 
is the same system of power and mercy thrown 
into continuous action by the ever-brightening 
interference of “ the same Lord !” Whether, 
therefore, we listen to Job, as he moans out in 
the bitterness of his soul : “ I know that my 
Redeemer liveth,”* or to Abraham, who “ re- 
joiced to see His day,”t or to Moses legislating 
for Israel, or to Isaiah bending into futurity, 
or to the Apostle proclaiming the Glad Tidings, 
or to the beloved Disciple, as he gazes on the 
jasper throne, or to the four-and-twenty elders, 
as they fling their crowns before it — whether 
we look at the history, or the prophecy, or the 
parable, or the proverb, or the psalm, or the 
* Job xix. 25. f John viii. 56. 


Unity in Variety . Sy 

canticle, or the finger of the Baptist, the pen of 
the Evangelist, the quiet epistle of love, or the 
dazzling vision of Glory — we find the attention 
riveted on the same absorbing, expanding, 
and ennobling object — the foundation of peace, 
hope, and love — the One Almighty and 
Adorable Saviour, the strength and righteous- 
ness of the people of God, under every form 
and in every age ! 

And now, let us see what kind of evidence 
this state of things presents to us. Here are 
men of every age, caste, and character, separated 
by continents and centuries, having no earthly 
connexion or communication whatever, sub- 
mitting to their own local and limited superiors, 
but knowing absolutely nothing of a universal 
authority which should press them into plausi- 
ble and superficial smoothness. And yet ! 
here they are all standing on the same rock, 
breathing the same spirit, rejoicing in the same 
hope, coming up from the same wilderness,* 
and, what is most important, differing in the 
forms of their religious ivorship! There is no 
* Cant. viii. 5. 


58 


Unity in Variety. 


resemblance between this state of things and 
the position and pretension of the Church of 
Rome. Her catechism of opinions — her antical 
ceremonies — her boundless authority and her 
artificial uniformity have neither warrant nor 
counterpart here. There is no analogy between 
the inspired history of religion, and the structure 
of an exclusive, infallible, and domineering 
corporation. 

THE STRUCTURE AND POSITION OF THE JEWISH 
CHURCH. 

Iii tracing the history of true religion from 
Genesis to Revelation, we are met — half way 
— by the peculiar structure and position of the 
Jewish Church and people — peculiar, because 
they were chosen from among the nations, 
separated by multiplied and singular bulwarks, 
and moulded into singularity by the visible 
hand of God — bearing no resemblance to any- 
thing that went before, or to anything in the 
Bible that follows after them — a new chapter 
in the history of redemption — an onward move- 
ment in the way of salvation — in fact, “a 
diffe ren t ad m inis t ration. ’ ’ 


5 9 


Unity in Variety. 

Tlie solitary stones of witness that lay scat- 
tered in Arabia, and at Salem, and on Mount 
Moriah, and through the wilderness, are here 
brought together and built up into a solid, 
regular, and gorgeous pile of emblems , represent- 
ing the Atonement, the Intercession, the 
righteousness, the Priesthood, the free forgive- 
ness, the purifying influence, the regal author- 
ity, and the grace and glory of the Lord ! 
And this, so fully, and so minutely, that the 
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews does not 
hesitate to give them the precedence.* In fact, 
God taught His people as we teach our chil- 
dren — first by an alphabet, and then by a pic- 
ture book. The Patriarchal Church is the 
alphabet, the Jewish Church is the picture 
book of salvation. And the Jewish believer 
was quite aware of this. For, while the 
thoughtless, the carnal, and the worldly rested 
in the mere ceremonial , and exulted in their 
adhesion to its forms, and went about to estab- 
lish “ their own righteousness,” — thus turning 
the ministry of life into a ministry of condem- 
* Hebrews iv. 2. 


6o 


Unity in Variety. 

nation — the Jewish believer saw the Divine 
reality in the beautiful similitude, and he re- 
joiced that “ though his sins were as scarlet, 
they would be as white as snow ; though red like 
crimson they would be as wool.”* Coming up 
from the wilderness, he too, said to his Almighty 
companion, “Thou shalt guide me with thy 
counsel here, and afterwards receive me to 
glory.” t Yes ! the significant symbol and the 
holy commandment served as “ a schoolmaster ” { 
to “ bring them to Christ.” || To the eye of faith, 
His blood streamed from every altar — His 
prayer gave fragrance to evey cloud of incense — 
the pure gold of His righteousness covered the 
mercy-seat — His lights and perfections gleamed 
from the jewelled breastplate — His glory dwelt 

* Isaiah i. 8. f Psalms lxxiii. 24. 

X This word, “schoolmaster,” does not convey the 
meaning of the original. The word is pcedagogue, that is, 
the person, generally a slave, who conducted children to 
and from school, and attended them out of school hours. 
The leading idea of the Apostle, is, that of bringing unto 
and preparing for, as the Law did for the Gospel, viz. : by 
its types and prophecies, doctrines, and moral precepts, all 
leading men to the Gospel, by showing the impossibility of 
performing any law of works. 

|| Galatians iii. 24. 


Unity in Variety. 61 

between the cherubim, and evey blast of the 
silver trumpet proclaimed His final triumph 
and that of His believing people ! 

But besides being a shadow of good things 
to come, the Jewish Church was also a light 
shining in a dark place. It was a brilliant 
beacon to guide surrounding nations to the 
knowledge and worship of the One true God. 
We notice this latter peculiarity because it 
leads us to the different administrations as 
distinctly as does the former to “ the same 
Lord.” The beautiful similitude, though not 
as widely as the Divine reality, was yet “ a 
light to lighten the Gentiles.” It burned like 
the bush in Horeb, of which Moses said, “I 
will now turn aside and see this great sight.” 
Gentiles of every age and nation, attracted by 
the great sight, discovered the glory of the 
Lord, and, like the pious Israelite, waited for 
the consolation of Israel. We have not, of 
course, the history of each individual ; but we 
read of Naaman the Syrian — Buth, the Moab- 
it ess _the widow of Sarepta — the wise men of 
the East — Cornelius, the Bom an centurion— 


62 


Unity in Variety . 


the Ethiopian eunuch — and bands of “devout 
men,” who feared God, and hailed the glad 
tidings of the gospel as unfolding “ the Desire 
of all nations,” and the very object of their 
own prayers and aspirations. Now, these per- 
sons were not bound by the Jewish ceremo- 
nial. They did not sacrifice. They were wholly 
independent of its sprinklings, its washings, 
and its feasts. The minute and multiplied 
religious rites and ceremonies of Leviticus 
were no rites and ceremonies to them ! It is 
true, we read of Cornelius.* But then he did 
not, indeed, he could not worship in the Jewish 
form, and yet his worship not only went up as 
a memorial before God, but it was viewed 
and treated with peculiar interest and favor! 
Here, then, alongside of a Church chosen, and 
separated, and moulded into singularity by 
the visible hand of God Himself ! Here, in the 
page of history, where we should least expect 
to find it, we have “ different administrations, 
but the same Lord.” In fact, the Lord Al- 
mighty has never erected a sole exclusive 
* Acts x. 1, 2. 


Unity in Variety . 


63 


religious corporation upon this earth. He has 
never given His sanction to universal authority, 
unvarying uniformity and artificial salvation. 
Man, indeed, has attempted to do so — blind 
and selfish man has attempted to confine the 
mercy of God within mechanical forms, and 
boundaries of his own creation. The Church of 
Rome has limited it to communion with the 
Pope. There are others who would limit it to 
Episcopal ordination and baptism. There are 
others again who limit it to a Catechism of 
assembled dogmas. Others to their own pri- 
vileged and eclectic community, to which they 
apply the peculiar title of, “ The one assembly 
of God,” and regard ever}d>ody else as the 
excluded world outside ! Such “ fantastic tricks 
before high Heaven are calculated to make an 
angel weep!” And, how tightly must this 
narrow-hearted selfishness be twined around 
the very core of our nature, when our Lord’s 
own disciples, blest with His immediate pre- 
sence, and concourse, attempted to draw it 
around the Spirit of the Redeemer Himself. 
“ Master ! we saw one casting out devils in Thy 


6 4 


Unity in Variety . 


name, and we forbade him, because he folioweth 
not with us.” And Jesus said, “Forbid him 
not.”* What bitter strife and envyings the 
spirit of exclusiveness has occasioned ! What 
blood it has shed in the name of Christ ! What 
wars and desolations it hath wrought on the 
earth! How completely it has travestied the 
Catholic spirit of true religion, and given just 
cause to the enemy to blaspheme ! And what 
a lesson is conveyed to every denomination of 
Christians in our Blessed Lord’s reply ! “ For- 

bid them not ” / / It is the death wound of 
universal authority, and mechanical exclusion. 
And, dare we intrude into the private feelings 
of the Redeemer, it might be safely asserted, 
that no one thing gave greater pleasure to His 
human mind than breaking this “ true exclusive 
Church ” notion into pieces ! And how trium- 
phantly He has done it. He who said to the 
woman of Canaan, “ O woman ! great is thy 
faith ”f — He who said to the afflicted heathen 
Centurion, “ I have not found so great faith, no, 
not in Israel ”;£ — [The true Church!] He who 
* Luke ix. 49, 50. f Matt. xv. 28. t Matt. viii. 10. 


65 


Unity in Variety. 

turned the illuminated face of His star to the 
wise men of the East, and greeted them with 
an infant’s smile — He who told the woman of 
Samaria, “ The time cometh, and now is, when 
the true worshippers shall worship the Father 
in spirit and in truth,” — He who gave His 
"Word to the Ethiopian eunuch, and sent His 
servant to expound it, — He who tore the cancer 
of Bigotry, by its living roots, from the heart 
of His struggling Apostle, and compelled him 
to stammer out, “ Of a truth I perceive that 
God is no respecter of persons ; but, in every 
nation, he that feareth God, and worketh 
righteousness, is accepted of Him,”* — He it is, 
who has crushed Church selfishness, and 
arrogance, with an Almighty hand. He has 
taken that “ molten calf,” and having ground it 
into impalpable powder, has scattered it along 
the stream of Time, that, as it floats to each 
succeeding generation, a scriptural little child 
may see its glaring falsehood, and its contempti- 
ble insignificance ! 

Now, He who breathed the soul of true 

* Acts x. 34, 35. 

5 


66 


Unity in Variety . 

Religion, lias also arranged its history. There- 
fore, whether we look at Abraham on Mount 
Moriah, or Jacob before his ladder, or the 
Israelites in Egypt, or the pillar of fire in the 
Wilderness, or the Tabernacle in Canaan, or 
the Temple under Solomon, or the Church 
deprived of all its rites in Babylon, or the 
bands of devout Gentiles in every age, who 
worshipped acceptably without the Jewish 
forms — in all and each of them we find the 
facts of true religion in unison with its spirit. 


CHAPTER VI. 


THE EVIDENCE OF THE DIVINE ARRANGEMENT. 

“ The world harmoniously confused, 

Where order in variety we see, 

And where, though all things differ, all agree.” 


Pope (Windsor Forest). 


E now proceed to examine the evidence that 



H is presented to us by the Divine arrange- 
ment. Here are men of every caste and charac- 
ter, separated from each other by centuries and 
continents — having no earthly communication — • 
ignorant of each other’s words, and, to a certain 
extent, ignorant of the full meaning of their 
own — and what is more important, differing in 
the forms of their religious worship — yet here 
they are, standing on the same Bock, breathing 
the same Spirit, rejoicing in the same hope, 
and bearing their united testimony to the 
same loving kindness. It is out of the power 
of man to conceive any testimony more free 
from question. Now, suppose this testimony 


( 67 ) 


68 


Unity in Variety. 


came down to us in another way. Suppose, 
for a moment, that in the early history of 
Religion, we had — what we most certainly 
have not — the peculiar structure, and position, 
and pretensions of the Church of Rome, and 
that the united testimony came down to us 
through that channel. Suppose we had a con- 
tinuous and exclusive religious corporation, 
w T itli an unmarried priesthood, cut off from the 
sympathies and feelings of Nature, and of 
society around them ! selling the gifts of God 
for money — assuming to be His sole represen- 
tatives on earth — proclaiming that, however 
we believed, and lived, and loved, and were 
conformed to the image of God — out of their 
pale there was no promise of salvation ! — 
When a favorable opportunity presented itself, 
aiming at temporal as well as spiritual author- 
ity — using for this purpose, without the slight- 
est scruple, the rebel, or the slave — the mon- 
arch or the usurper — gathering strength and 
volume, like the sliding snow, from every ob- 
ject around them, till swelled into an 
avalanche, and bearing all before them, they 


Unity in Variety. 


69 


arrived at a degree of power, splendor, arro- 
gance, and aggrandisement, which, coupled 
with their spiritual, has never been exceeded 
upon this earth! Suppose we offered their 
united testimony as evidence of the truth of 
God to an intelligent man of the world — what 
would be the probable answer he would make 
to us? United ! he would say ; why, of course 
they are. United! in the name of common 
sense, how could it be otherwise ? With their 
lofty assumption, and their magnificent stake, 
are you really surprised that they submit to an 
authority of their own creation, which consoli- 
dates then- interests, and presses them into plau- 
sible and superficial smoothness ? Why (he 
might go on to say), I can point you to the 
captain of a band of smugglers, invested with 
similar authority, and for a similar reason it is 
that they obey their chief, and cling together, 
and adhere to their rules and regulations, and 
perform deeds of daring, and devotedness, and 
self-denial, which, in another cause, would be 
worthy of a noble name. And yet ! when they 
come into a court of justice, you give no credit 


7o 


Unity in Variety . 


to their testimony. The cement that hinds these 
individuals together renders their evidence of little 
or no value. In fact, the Unity of which you 
seem so much enamored, is the essential 
characteristics of all outcasts from society, who 
are banded together against the rights, the 
liberties, and the common interests of man- 
kind. I cannot, therefore, receive it as con- 
clusive evidence of what you call the truth of 
God. The Church of Rome is an ancient, pro- 
fessing Christian Church, which, although 
fallen and corrupt now, still says in its true 
sense, “ Thou art the King of Glory, O 
Christ !” But, we are compelled, on the 
authority of the Apostle, and against the 
Church of Rome, to advocate “the different 
administrations.” And we are stating not our 
personal objections, but an objection which a 
shrewd sensible man of the world might make 
to the most brilliant evidence contained in the 
Bible, if that evidence came to us exclusively 
through such a channel as the Church of 
Rome. The force of this objection it would be 
impossible to set aside. But, as the wisdom, 


Unity in Variety. 7 1 

and the love of God have really placed the evi- 
dence before us, every mouth must be stopped 
by the testimony of such a cloud of witnesses 
as is presented to us by the Divine arrange- 
ment. Here are men of every caste, condition, 
and climate, who never saw each other’s faces, 
ignorant of each other’s thoughts, having no 
earthly connection, or communication what- 
ever, total strangers to universal authority 
and superficial smoothness, differing from each 
other in the forms of their religious worship, yet, 
all hashing in the same hope, and hearing their 
united testimony to the same loving Tcindness. Here 
they are alive, if ever men were alive, to the 
dearest and best interests of society around them 
— proclaiming, “Thy money perish with thee 
because thou hast thought that the gift of God 
may be purchased with money ” * — confessing 
that they were “ pilgrims and strangers on the 
earth” t — not counting their own lives dear un- 
to them that they might finish their course 
with joy. “ Taking joyfully the spoiling of their 
goods, knowing that they had in Heaven a 

f Heb. xi. 13. 


* Acts viii. 20. 


72 Unity in Variety . 

better and an enduring substance”* — sitting 
loose to all that is naturally valuable to the 
heart of man — but clinging with a drowning 
man’s tenacity to The Rock of their Salvation, 
and submitting to torture and to death in its 
most appalling forms rather than loosen one 
fibre of the grasp with which they held to 
their Almighty and Adorable Saviour. The 
utmost effort of the imagination can assign no 
satisfactory solution for this singular and 
unanimous testimony, but one, and that is, that 
they were all taught by the same Word and 
Spirit to unite themselves to “ the same Lord.” 
Therefore, they all show the same absorbing 
leaf, the same climbing tendril, the same lofty 
and luxuriant fruit. A man might as soon 
believe that the variegated landscape, the 
rainbow-tinted showers, the mountain top 
covered with the dews of heaven, and illumi- 
nated with the rising radiance, were made by 
the hand of man, as that this united testimony 
was of human construction. 

Now, we are indebted for this brilliant evi- 


* Heb. x. 34. 


Unity in Variety. 


n 


dence to the very state of things with which we 
are offended. It springs to us from the “differ- 
ent administrations,” and we lose a great deal 
of its form, and its beauty, if we do not read 
the Bible with an eye to it. It is to be feared 
that there are many readers of the Bible who 
look upon Bedemption as a late and a solitai^ 
transaction, at the end of a great number of 
totally different transactions. To read the 
Bible in this way is to miss the very object for 
which it was written. It is the wonderful pro- 
perty of the Bible that, though written by a 
number of persons ignorant of each other’s 
words, and, to a certain extent, ignorant of the 
full meaning of their own, it yet possesses that 
unity of thought and design which proves it to 
be the production of One Great Mind. The 
theme is one — the object one — the transaction 
one. And it is so, that the heart may be 
attracted to its life-giving Author, and to nothing 
else. The Bible was not intended to teach us 
the motion of the stars, or the natural history 
of our planet, or the rules of criticism, or the 
details of history. It was intended to bring us 


74 


Unity in Variety. 


unto Jesus, that we might find rest and peace 
with God through Him.* The Bible was given 
to teach us the One thing needful; and so 
intent is its real Author upon its real object, 
that while the meanest and minutest circum- 
stance connected with God’s people is clearly and 
fully noticed, the mighty monarchs, and the 
splendid empires of the surrounding world are 
passed almost wholly in silence by, unless their 
edges happen to come in contact with the his- 
tory of God’s glory and man’s salvation ; after 
which, they sink back into the obscurity out of 
which they had emerged for a moment. The 
main object of the Divine Spirit is to place our 
Peace, and Hope, and Holiness, in every stage 
of its growth, distinctly before our eyes. The 
prevailing drift of the Scripture is plainly in one 
direction, leading us to see that — Christ is “our 
peace ” — and that He has been the peace and 
hope of every believer in every age. Through 
Him the “ cloud of witnesses ”+ has left behind 
them that brilliant and varied evidence, which 


* Matt. xi. 29. Rev. v. i. f Heb. xi. Heb. xii. i. 


Unity in Variety . 75 

ever waits on the “Divine workmanship,” to 
“justify the ways of God to man.” 

Were we called upon to condense into a 
single sentence the Catholic spirit of the be- 
lieving people of God, we should say that it 
consisted in attachment to the Lord Jesus, as 
our Great Head of the Church, and its eternal 
consequence — attachment to each other. 
There is no proposition more inevitably con- 
clusive than that laid down by the beloved 
Disciple, viz. : “ Every one that loveth Him 
that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of 
Him.”* 

* 1 John v. i. 


CHAPTER VII. 


THE DIFFERENT ADMINISTRATIONS OF RELIGION 
CO-EXISTING IN THE EARTHLY DAYS OF OUR 
BLESSED REDEEMER. 

“ Concordia discors.’ 

Discordant concord. 

Eor. Ep. i. 12-19. 

I N following the inspired history of Religion 
from Genesis to Revelation, we have endea- 
vored to prove that Almighty God has never 
erected in this fallen world a sole visible and 
continuous religious corporation — exercising 
universal authority, laying claim to exclusive 
salvation, and warranted by its infallible dog- 
matism to press the people of God into mental 
subjection and superficial smoothness. We 
have seen that in the Patriarchal age, there 
was no assembly of believers assuming to be 
the mother and mistress of all other assem- 
blies, and, alongside of the Jewish Church, 
separated as it necessarily was by its peculiar 
( 76 ) 


Unity hi Variety. 


77 


form and its singular bulwarks, there was yet, 
in every age, a body of believers worshipping 
God acceptably, neither bound by its authority, 
nor subject to its forms. Now, the inspired 
history of religion resembles the every-day 
revelation of Nature. As the morning ap- 
proaches, the light increases. As the rising 
radiance glances along the landscape, its out- 
line, and its objects become more distinct. 
So, also, the living substance of true religion, 
and its great principles, are more largely and 
more clearly projected, and, just as the disc 
touches the illuminated horizon, we have a new 
and independent “ administration ” of true re- 
ligion, co-existing with the Church of Israel, 
illustrating the arrangement before us, and 
thus inflicting another wound upon the con- 
tracted and domineering system, which world- 
liness and arrogance have endeavored (but in 
vain) to establish in its room. 

To place this clearly before us, it will be neces- 
sary to direct attention to the different admin- 
istrations of true religion — independent of each 
other — which we find co-existing in the earthly 


78 Unity in Variety . 

days of our Lord and Saviour. If infallible Church 
authority, vested in a successive priesthood, be 
an original principle, coeval with revelation, 
and by God’s providence reaching us by an 
unbroken chain, — beyond all dispute, when the 
Lord Jesus appeared on the earth that authority 
resided in the Church of Israel, and the very 
question which the Church of Rome delights in 
at the present day was put by the Jewish High 
Priest to the Redeemer Himself ! “ By what 

authority doest Thou these things, and who 
gave Thee this authority?”* intimating thereby 
that His ministry was not derived from them. 
It was, therefore, independent in its origin. 
Now, a sole, visible, and unerring Church, con- 
structed by infallible authority, and a ministry 
independent of it, cannot exist together. If the 
one be right, the other must be wrong. If the 
Church of Israel was what the Church of Rome 
now assumes to be, the “ministries” of the 
Baptist, and the Redeemer, were unauthorized 
“ministries,” and the Jewish nation was right 
to reject their testimony, and to adhere to the 
* Matt. xxi. 23. 


79 


Unity in Variety, 

ancient and unerring tribunal which God had 
appointed to keep them in the truth. And the 
punishment for doing so was scarcely a just 
punishment, so that the religion of the New 
Testament is stained in its authority, and in its 
source, and this terrible but inevitable conclu- 
sion compels us to dismiss the idea of an 
unerring tribunal, and to take refuge in the 
limited, but venerable authority of “ the different 
administrations ” — an authority cheerfully and 
profoundly recognized and respected, both by 
the Baptist and by the Redeemer. 

This conclusion is still more evident from 
the mode of conducting these administrations. 
Had a continuous and unerring, visible tribunal 
been the first principle of true religion, it would 
have been the leading idea in the Word of God, 
and being so, it would have been twined into the 
prophecy and history of the Redeemer. He 
would have been born in the line of this 
authority. He would have been a Jewish 
Priest of the tribe of Levi, of the family of 
Aaron. His words and wonders would have 
been placed before the Elders of Israel. He 


8o 


Unity in Variety . 


would have converted the majority of the Coun- 
cil — He would have been sent forth by their 
authority, and then, the golden chain would 
have been unbroken. Those who rejected Him 
would have been without excuse, and everything 
wonld have been of a piece. The very reverse 
of all this took place. He was not born in the 
line of succession. He was denounced by this 
authority. He stood off from it, and the whole 
spirit and conduct of His ministry went to 
discountenance the idea of its existence. He 
let the Jewish council alone. Like our Beform- 
ers, He appealed to the senses, and the intelli- 
gence of the common people. He based His 
religion on the Word of Truth, which He quoted, 
and the wonders of love, which He performed. 
— “ If I bear witness of myself, my witness is 
is not true.”* The works which I do in my 
Father’s name, they bear witness of me.” t 
Oh ! what a rebuke to human arrogance, that 
He who is the Head over all things — far above 
all principalities, and power, and might, and 
dominion, and every name that is named, not 
* John y. 31. f John x. 15. 


Unity in Variety. 81 

only in this world, but also in that which is to 
come* — declined to bear testimony to Himself ! 
— placed the truth of His mission upon tbe 
Word and the Works of God, and exhorted the 
people to “ search,” to “ inquire,” and “ to 
observe.” And so did John to his disciples. 
He did not send them to have their doubts 
resolved by an infallible Priesthood. He sent 
them to see and to hear for themselves. 

Now, looking at the Baptist and the Be- 
deemer merely as ministers of God, whom it 
became “ to fulfil all righteousness,” it is 
inconceivable that in the origin — the spirit, and 
the whole conduct of their ministries — they 
should overlook the continuous and unerring 
tribunal, which God had appointed “ to guide 
the Church into all the truth.”f On Christian 
principles, this is perfectly inconceivable. We 
are, therefore, again driven from the idea of 
such a tribunal, and compelled to take refuge 
in what was recognized and respected by the 
Baptist and the Redeemer — the local and limit- 
ed authority of the different administrations. 

* Eph. x. 21. f John xvi. 13. 


6 


82 


Unity in Variety. 


But this is still more forcibly impressed upon 
us by the success of the different ministries. 
For example : when we see such a man as the 
late Thomas Chalmers proclaiming and enforc- 
ing the Bedeemer’s Gospel in the spirit and 
power of God’s servant — when we see him 
combating infidel objections with fairness, and 
force, and a luxuriance of argument which bears 
down all before it — illustrating the purest doc- 
trine by the exhaustless and redundant over- 
flowing of a brilliant imagination, and a sancti- 
fied heart — adorning his profession by self- 
denying labor, an independent character, and a 
consistent life, and attended by a cloud of living 
and dying witnesses, into whom he had infused 
his own spirit of “ power, and love, and of a 
sound mind * and when we reflect that effects 
like these can only be traced to the “ ointment ” 
of the Saviour’s name, and to the finger of His 
Spirit, we cannot close our eyes against a mat- 
ter of fact of this description. 

We may be devotedly attached to our own 
adminstration of religion ; we may believe, most 
* Tim. i. 17. 


U?iity in Variety . 


83 


devoutly, that the Church of England is more 
in accordance with the nature of man, the 
scriptures of God, the structure of society, and 
the Apostolic model, than any other upon this 
earth. We may admire her enlarged modera- 
tion, and may exult in her generous and manly 
acknowledgment of the Catholic spirit of true 
religion. We may submit with reverential 
fondness to her mild, and venerable, and useful 
authority. We may feel borne upward, and 
may rejoice in the clear, quiet, sober, and 
steady light which she continues to emit, when 
ministers like Chalmers have passed away. We 
may apply to her system, and to her services, 
the words of the poet, — 

“Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull, 
Strong without rage, without o’erflowing full.” 

We may feel all this with the combined force 
of a filial and philosophic regard, but still ! the 
matter of fact stares us in the face. We may be 
reminded of hereditary authority, Apostolic 
succession, Episcopal ordination, and antique 
resemblance, and we are thankful for these 
things so far as they go, and there is unques- 


84 Unity in Variety. 

tionably an essential difference between this 
administration and the other, but when we have 
the honesty to examine the real state of the 
case, ,we find matter of fact too strong for 
scholastic notions, however respectable. The 
proclamation of God’s Grace, and the self- 
denying purity of God’s servant, and the wit- 
ness of God’s Spirit, and the manifest ingather- 
ing of God’s people, surge over our ecclesiasti- 
cal prepossessions, and bear down upon us, 
whether we will or not, the double-edged 
conclusion, that there are differences of admin- 
istrations, but the same Lord. 

It need scarcely be observed how immeasu- 
rably this evidence is augmented by the 
ministries that co-existed with the Church of 
Israel. The modesty of the Baptist, and the 
lowliness of the Redeemer, the purity of the 
doctrine, and the holiness of the life, the doing 
good in the valley, and the teaching on the 
mountain, the thronging of the multitude, and 
the virtue that was afloat to heal them, the 
singular combination of tenderness and power, 
of dignity and meekness, and the other count- 


Unity in Variety . 


85 


less instances of unearthly excellence, which 
the Evangelists have showered around us — 
what is all this alongside of the ancient and 
indisputable Church of Israel, but a Divine 
recognition of the arrangement of the different 
administrations. And when to this we add the 
shepherds, and the angels, and the Star, and 
the voice from Heaven, and the face shining as 
the sun, and the blind recovering their sight, 
and the dead raised up, and the devils trem- 
bling, and the graves opening, and the poor 
sympathized with — what is all this but the 
power of Grace, and the course of Providence, 
and the obedience of Nature, and the voice of 
God bearing concentrated testimony against 
the sole corporation system of an exclusive and 
infallible Church authority. 


CHAPTER TUI. 


THE HEALTHY RESULTS OF THESE INDEPENDENT 
ADMINISTRATIONS. 

“All Nature’s difference keeps all Nature’s peace.” 

Pope ( Essay on Man, iv. 56). 

T HE arrangement before us, while it sati- 
ates the understanding with evidence of its 
truth, does, at the same time, convey lessons 
of considerable value to the heart, (e. g.) 
There is no religious error more common, and 
more fatal, than that of leaning for salvation 
upon the external forms of the Church to which 
we belong. The higher our Church notions 
are, the stronger is the temptation to do so. 
Of the strength, and of the evil of this delusion, 
we have a solemn example in the Bible — the 
example of the Jewish people , with their neglected 
Saviour standing in the midst of them ! In pro- 
portion as they took away the key of know- 
ledge, and taught for doctrines the command- 
ments of men, and preferred their grains of 
(86) 


Unity in Variety . 


87 


“ anise ” and “ cummin ” to judgment, mercy, 
and faith, and made the Word of God of none 
effect by their traditions — and consequently 
sunk into superstition and defilements — in that 
very proportion they believed themselves to be 
the only administrators of true religion in the 
world. However it might be with others, they 
considered it a sort of impropriety to question 
their security : “ Are we blind also ?” “ We 

be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage 
to any man,” and so high was their notion of 
their external privileges and forms, that when 
they were trampling down the vital principles, 
and the living Model of true religion, they 
shouted with increased confidence : “ The 

Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord 
are we ”! ! ! In fact, the delusion, to which we 
refer, is the natural result of the sole corporation 
system. Wherever there is a local and visible 
Church (be it at Rome, or at Geneva, or at 
Oxford), which applies to itself those splendid 
portions of scripture which describe the holi- 
ness and the security of the Church of the 
first-born, there the tendency is — we do not say 


88 


Unity in Variety . 


in every instance, for the Grace of Christ 
surges over artificial barriers, and makes its 
way through bars of iron to the hearts of His 
people — but the tendency of the system is, to have 
a form of godliness while denying its power.* 
In that case there is danger of preferring the 
grains of “ anise ” and “ cummin ” to the 
neglect of the weightier matters of the law.t 
Now, the local and limited arrangement 
tends, on the other hand, insensibly to dissipate 
this delusion. When we see persons who do 
not belong to our religious communion, and 
who worship the Lord in somewhat different 
forms — preaching His Gospel, adorning His 
doctrine, casting out devils in His name, and 
bearing living and dying testimony to His 
power, and faithfulness, and love — the conclu- 
sion steals in upon us, that religion does not 
consist in unvarying forms, but in that healing 
and reconciling mercy, which, like its unchang- 
ing Author, is “ the same yesterday, to-day, and 
forever.’’^: Thus the mind is enlightened, the 
-heart is enlarged, and the conscience is awak- 
* 2 Tim. iii. 6. f Matt, xxiii. 23. J Heb. xiii. 7. 


8q 


Unity in Variety. 

ened, and the soul is directed to its remedy. 
And while, like the primitive believers of the 
Church of Rome, we are disposed to wrangle 
about meats and drinks, we have read off for 
us in the living world before our eyes the great 
lesson, that “the kingdom of God is not meat 
and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and 
joy in the Holy Ghost. For, he that in these 
things servetli God, is acceptable to God, and 
approved of men.”* 

Now, do we admit that this is a valuable and 
instructive lesson ? We are indebted for it to 
the very state of things with which we are 
“ offended.” The healthy result, as well as the 
brilliant evidence, springs up to us from the 
different administrations. In other words, the 
various modes of administering true religion, 
which exist in the world, have their origin in 
the constitution of man — are illustrated by the 
inspired history of religion, and followed by 
that splendid evidence, and those healthy re- 
sults, which are ever attendant on the Divine 
workmanship — 

* Rom. xiv. 16, 17, 18 


90 


Unity in Variety. 


“ To justify tlie ways of God to man.” 

And we can justify the arrangement in our 
own person. The way to do it, is simply to be 
the servant of this “ same Lord ” — to rejoice in 
His name — to be exalted in His righteousness — 
to go forth in His strength, and to adorn 
clearly, and consistently, the administration of 
religion to which we belong, by “righteous- 
ness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” 
Let these things dwell in us richly and con- 
spicuously, and we shall have the result in our 
own souls, and we shall imprint the lesson 
upon the souls of our fellow Christians. We 
may be assured of it that this is a lesson not 
to be resisted. No system can repel it. No 
prejudice can withstand it. Men may assert 
with their lips, that out of their Church there 
is no promise of salvation, but if we walk 
worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called, 
with all lowliness, and meekness, with long 
suffering, forbearing one another in love — that 
lesson will make itself read insensibly, inces- 
santly, and irresistibly. It will pierce the hide 
of Bigotry, glide into the hidden man of the 


Unity in Variety . 91 

heart, and there print off the mighty truth that 
“ The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, 
but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the 
Holy Ghost.”* And what is most to our pur- 
pose, we shall be accepted of God, and, in spite 
of prejudice, we shall be approved of men ; and 
the arrangement of “the different administra- 
tions ” will be justified by our example. For, 
after all that can be said of the constitution of 
man, and the history of religion, and the 
brilliant evidences, and healthy results — a soul 
converted to God, and loving the doctrine and 
discipline of the Lord, is, at once, the finest 
illustration and the clearest evidence of the 
Catholic spirit of true religion. 

* Rom. xiv. 17. 


CHAPTER IX. 


THE ARGUMENT FOR UNITY IN VARIETY DEDUCED 
FROM THE GENERAL RESEMBLANCE OF THE 
BIBLE TO THE STRUCTURE OF THE PLANET ON 
WHICH WE RESIDE. 

“All concord’s bom of Contraries.” 

Ben Jonson. 

I T is the recorded saying of Origen, as quoted 
by Bishop Butler, that “ he who believes 
the Scripture to have proceeded from Him who 
is the Author of Nature, may well expect to 
find the same sort of difficulties in it as are to 
be found in the constitution of Nature.” The 
same idea, differently expressed, had been 
suggested long ago by the wise son of Sirach, 
when he said, “ All things are double one 
against another.”* From many parts of the 
Bible we are led to infer that there is a family 
likeness, as it were, between the work of Crea- 
* Eccles. xlii. 14. 

^ 92 ) 


93 


Unity in Variety. 

tion and the work of Redemption. The same 
agency, in short, is said to be at work in 
Nature as in Grace — “My Father worketh 
hitherto, and I work.”* There is, therefore, a 
certain uniformity which renders them fit to 
illustrate, and be illustrated by each other. 
Accordingly, we find that they are so used in 
the Bible. The Gospel of the Grace of God is 
employed to throw light upon the existing con- 
dition of our world. And the works of Crea- 
tion — in all their boundless variety, from the 
Lily of the field to the Sun in the firmament — 
are constantly, and abundantly brought for- 
ward to explain the nature, the value, and the 
influence of the Gospel. There are many 
striking analogies between the work of the 
Creator and that of the Saviour. The same 
loving kindness surrounded by equal difficul- 
ties — the same unity of purpose emerging from 
apparent confusion — the same admirable ad- 
justment of adequate means to merciful and 
noble purposes. Now let us apply these ob- 
servations to the subject before us. 

* John v. 17. 


94 Unity in Variety. 

One of the leading objections to the written 
Revelation of God, is the careless and con- 
fused manner in which its materials appear to 
be thrown together. There is an absence of 
that order and regularity which we expect in 
a literary composition intended to instruct 
and improve us. We have Psalms, Proverbs, 
Types, Prophecies, Letters, Laws, Canticles, 
things mean, and things excellent, written by 
different men of different ages and countries. 
All these productions are piled upon each 
other, with little or no connection — with a total 
disregard of that dramatic unity which con- 
stitutes the charm of human poetry and prose. 
Is it possible that the Lord Almighty can be 
the Author of such a patchwork compilation ? 
Is it possible that He, the God of order, and of 
beauty, from whom we might expect simplicity 
and elegance in their purest forms, can be the 
Editor of so loose and disjointed a work as 
this ? 

Now, the way to deal with this objection is 
to take some acknowledged work of the Creator, 
and see whether we can discover a family 


Unity in Variety . 95 

resemblance between its structure and that of 
the Bible. The crust of the earth on which we 
reside is, indisputably, the work of the Creator, 
and it is just such a mass of irregular and 
dislocated confusion. Its surface is broken up 
without the slightest regard to what we choose 
to call order. The strata of which it is com- 
posed do not lie over each other in concentric 
circles like the coats of an onion. They have 
been plainly fractured by disturbing forces, 
and piled upon each other like pieces of ice, 
which had been jumbled together by a storm, 
and then frozen together a second time. There 
are cracks, and slips, and displacements. The 
richest jewels are embedded in the coarsest 
materials, and the whole surface is shattered 
and shoved into every conceivable angle of 
inclination. Now, let us see what the scieuce 
of the Earth tells us of an arrangement, which, 
superficially considered, appears, like that of 
the Bible, to be unsightly disorder. “We 
shall form a better estimate (says Dr. Buck- 
land) of the wisdom of the confused and 
complex disposition of the materials of the 


g6 Unity in Variety. 

earth, if we consider the inconvenience that 
might have attended other arrangements, 
smoother and more simple than those which 
actually exist. Had the earth’s crust pre- 
sented one unvaried mass of crystal, or granite, 
or limestone, or had they lain over each other 
in regular folds like the coats of an onion, only 
one of these coats could have been within the 
reach of the inhabitants. And the varied 
intermixture of sand, and clay, and mould, 
and limestone, which constitute the soil of 
agriculture, and are so necessary to the beauty, 
fertility, and habitability of the field, would 
have had no place whatever upon its surface. 
Again, there would be no reservoirs of water, 
admitted through the pores of the earth, 
sheltered and purified for the use of man. 
The water that fell being retained under the 
sun would be soon evaporated, and the rivers 
not being fed by springs, would rush at once 
into the sea and leave their channels dry. 
Again, the inestimable treasures of salt, and 
coal, and iron, confined as they are to rocks of 
unusual thickness, would have been wholly 


97 


Unity in Variety . 

inaccesible, and we should have been destitute 
of the essential element of industry and civiliza- 
tion. Yes, it is the very disordered condition 
of its crust which covers the earth with food 
and verdure, that gives us access to its hidden 
treasures, and renders it the convenient and 
delightful habitation of man, and the multitude 
of animated beings with which it is crowded ; 
and he must be blind, indeed, who refuses to 
recognize the wise foresight and benevolent 
intention of Him whose works are so manifold, 
and who, it is justly said, in wisdom has made 
them all.” So speaks Geology of the crust of 
the earth on which we live. Now, the similar 
structure of the Bible promotes spiritual in- 
dustry, forces us into contact with every 
portion of its surface, and is one of the sources 
of that inexhaustible fulness and freshness 
which distinguishes it from ever}" other book. 
If the Bible were constructed with epic or 
dramatic regularity, it would consist of a 
simple moral, and a simple set of characters, 
easily found, and very soon exhausted. The 
parts of striking beauty and interest would be 
7 


9 8 


Unity in Variety . 


known and remembered, the rest would be 
neglected and forgotten. Here the Truth of 
God is scattered through the independent 
productions of men, of different ages and 
countries, giving force to their testimony be- 
cause it shows the impossibility of collusion. 
It is brought into contact with every variety of 
character and condition, and thus, instead of a 
simple moral, we have lessons of instruction, 
wide as our nature, and numerous as our 
spiritual wants. Here, as elsewhere, the jewels 
are embedded in coarser and less valuable 
materials, and as we know where we may find 
the precious stone which is suited to the 
spiritual exigency of the moment, we are. 
therefore, habitually brought into contact with 
every portion of that Word which the word 
Almighty has constructed to make us wise 
unto salvation. Thus the endless number of 
connexions in which the Truth of God is 
placed in the Bible, and the aptness with 
which it never fails to meet our spiritual wants 
and wishes, gives to “ its green pastures and 
its still waters ” that peculiar character of life 


Unity in Variety . 


99 


and freshness which renders it another, and 
yet, still the same. Now, if it be so — if it be 
plain that God in His works does not confine 
Himself to what we call regularity — if His 
Word be constructed not like the clipped and 
bordered garden, but with something of the 
wild luxuriance which distinguishes the works 
of Nature — if its materials be thrown together 
with the careless grandeur in which the stars 
are sprinkled over the firmament, or the 
flowers over the enamelled field — if it does 
really resemble the crust of the earth, not only 
in the apparent disorder, but in the wise 
foresight, the benevolent intention, and the 
wonderful and magnificent result, then its 
peculiar structure, coupled with this result, is 
so far from being an objection that it is hardly 
possible to conceive a more beautiful or de- 
cisive proof of its Divine origin. 


CHAPTER X. 


UNITY IN VARIETY AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE 
FRAMEWORK OF REDEMPTION. 

“Unity is a precious diamond whose grains as they 
double, twice double in their value.” 


ffolyday. 


E come, now, to the framework of Re- 



T t demption, as it is placed before us in the 
Bible. The first thing that strikes us, is the 
exceeding variety of the channels through 
which it is conveyed to us. We have books 
written by different persons, of different ages, 
characters, and countries, and so utterly dis- 
similar in style and structure, that judging 
merely from the surface , no man could imagine 
that they breathed the same spirit, or had the 
same object in view. But when we examine 
things more closely, when we pierce the super- 
ficial covering, and arrive at the substantive 
contents, we find the groundwork to be simple, 


( 100 ) 





IOI 


Unity in Variety. 

continuous, and uniform. We find Christ 
Jesus to be the foundation of them all. He is 
the subject of the history — the promise of the 
prophecy — the Wisdom of the proverb — the 
Bridegroom of the canticle — the end of the law 
— the solution of the type and parable — the 
song and salvation of the psalm — and the hope 
and the help of the people of God of every age, 
country, character, and condition. 

Nothing can be more diversified in shape and 
color than the caskets and the envelopes ; but, 
when we open the lid, or, undo the folding, the 
same jewel, sparkling now more faintly, and 
now more brightly, is detected at the bottom of 
them all. Thus we arrive at a feature similar 
to that stamped upon the framework of Creation 
— a Unity of plan under a surface of apparent 
dissimilarity and confusion ! 

Again, notice the various dispensations, and 
modes of worship, which are placed before us 
in connection with the believing people of God. 
Nothing can be more different in form and 
circumstance. Nothing can be more similar in 
substance and in spirit. 


102 


Unity in Variety . 


Look at righteous Abel, presenting the first- 
ling of his flock before the Cherubim, and the 
flaming sword, at the East end of the garden 
of Eden — at the Patriarch assembling his 
family round an altar of stone, on the savage 
mountain, or in the solitary valley — at the 
Jews in the land of Egypt, sprinkling their 
doorposts with the blood of the Paschal Lamb, 
or in the wilderness following the pillar of 
cloud and fire, or in the land of Canaan, 
thronging to a magnificent Temple with the 
blast of silver trumpets, the floating of incense, 
and the pomp of a numerous and gorgeous 
Priesthood. Look at Daniel praying at an 
open window in Babylon, without Altar, Priest, 
or Sacrifice. Look at John the Baptist in 
the desert, with a form of worship rude as his 
girdle, and wild as his locusts and his honey. 
Look at the Disciples breaking bread in an 
upper chamber at Jerusalem, at the beloved 
Disciple in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, before 
his Temple, in company with his associates, 
and then at the many-colored sections of the 
Church of Christ down to the present hour, 


103 


Unity in Variety. 

and, surely, it is scarcely possible to conceive 
anything more diversified. The flowers of the 
earth are not more different in attitude and 
color, shape and circumstance. They are so 
widely different that men of learning and 
acuteness — not w r ell acquainted with the Scrip- 
tures — have actually concluded that different 
modes of obtaining the Divine favor had been 
prescribed in different ages of the world. Yet, 
when we take off the variegated vestments, and 
examine, as in the case of the animal, the solid 
structure on which they rest, nothing can be 
more uniform than the substance and the 
spirit. 

There is abundant demonstration, both from 
the express statements of Scripture, and from 
the nature of each successive dispensation, that 
from the first to the last, in any age, and in 
every land, “ There was none other name under 
heaven whereby men could be saved but the 
name of Jesus Christ.” The sacrifice of Abel 
denoted Christ’s better blood of sprinkling. 
The Patriarch on the rugged mountain-side 
“rejoiced to see His day, and he saw it, and 


104 


Unity in Variety. 


was glad.” The prophet beheld His glory and 
spake of Him. The Jewish leader esteemed 
“ the reproach of Christ ” greater riches than 
all the treasures of Egypt. The Baptist 
pointed to the Lamb of God. The Apostle 
Peter, speaking of those servants of God who 
went before him, used this remarkable expres- 
sion : “We believe that through the Grace of 
the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even 
as they.” * St. Paul, in the eleventh chapter 
of the Hebrews, after enumerating the individ- 
uals and their diversities in such numbers as 
almost to overpower his readers, speaks of 
them all as actuated by the same principle, 
animated by the same hope, made strong out 
of the same weakness, claiming the same 
strength, working the same righteousness, 
eating the same spiritual meat, drinking the 
same spiritual drink, unmindful of the world 
from which they came out, and all with one 
heart seeking a better country, that is, an 
heavenly. 

No forms of existence can be more dissimilar 


7 


* Acts xv. 11. 


Unity in Variety . io5 

than these various dispensations ; yet we never 
find ourselves among such original, or totally 
different modes of worship as to indicate that 
we have come into the province of another 
Saviour, or another way of Salvation. We 
never find a new way of acceptance with God. 
We never find sin exalted, or the service of 
God disparaged. The same order of things 
attends us wherever we go. The same atone- 
ment — the same way of access — the same spirit 
of adoption — the same peace of heart and 
holiness of life. Amid boundless varieties Christ 
ivas all and in all. To the eye of faith He died 
in every sacrifice. He ascended in every cloud 
of incense. His name was in every Jubilee 
shout. His majesty and mercy were symbolized 
in the altar at the East end of Eden. They 
were made known also in the Holy of Holies, 
as in the dazzling revelations of Glory which 
floated before the beloved disciple. Thus in 
Eedemption, as in Creation, we have Unity in 
Variety. One plan and purpose is seen emerg- 
ing from that which, at first sight, appears to 
be irreconcileable diversity and confusion. 


jo6 Unity in Variety. 

This analogy affords no warrant for the 
dogmatic theology of Exclusive Church preten- 
sions. The existence of a religious domineering 
corporation, denouncing all outside its pale as 
hopelessly cut off from the blessings of Redemp- 
tion, finds no warrant or counterpart whatever 
in the Divine workmanship in Nature, and it is 
equally certain that it has no existence in the 
corresponding workmanship in the kingdom of 
Grace. 

In every department of Creation, as yet known, 
one universal law is found in constant operation. 
There is no exception anywhere. In animal 
and vegetable physiology — in the formation of 
“ the Great Globe itself ” — in the starry canopy 
above our heads — in short, in all things, on 
earth, in the sea, in the firmament, among all 
the tribes of birds, beasts, fishes, and creeping 
things, even in the immortal mind of man, and 
in the abstract processes of thought, the eternal 
principle which meets us everywhere is — Unity 
of Plan in Variety of Form. There is no such 
thing as Unity in Uniformity, except in the 
blind and selfish heart of man. 


CHAPTER XI. 


THE CONFLICT OF OPINION IN OTHER DEPART- 
MENTS OF KNOWLEDGE BESIDES RELIGION. 


With great variety of sound was there made sweet 
melody.” 

Son of Sirach, ch. 1. 18. 


T HE argument in the preceding chapters 
acquires force, when we notice the variety 
of opinion that exists in other departments 
of knowledge, as well as in Religion. When, 
for example, we consider the present advanced 
state of Medical Science, and how largely 
both Medicine and Physiology are indebted to 
the principle of the progress of truth by 
antagonism, we may reasonably infer that 
liberty of opinion is far more conducive to 
the ultimate triumph of truth than the impo- 
sition of mechanical restraints, in order to 
suppress, or to suspend the exercise of free 
thought. 

It may well amuse us in these days to read 

( 107 ) 


io8 Unity in Variety . 

the preamble to a certain Act of Parliament, 
passed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. By 
that Act it was declared, that “ whereas it ivas 
expedient that all men should think alike on the 
subject of Religion ,” &c., &c., certain penalties 
should be imposed in the event of contumacy. 
As well might our legislators introduce a Bill 
into Parliament to compel every man to have 
the same shade of hair, the same color of the 
eye, and the same number of pulsations in 
a minute ! To deter men from giving expres- 
sion to their opinions in matters of religion, by 
coercive measures, is quite within the range of 
human despotism. But the Divine privilege 
of every man to be the master of his own 
thoughts, is, happily, placed beyond the reach 
of all agencies, but one. God alone can 
regulate, or control the inner world of our 
ideas. 

So long as the human mind is constituted as 
at present, no two men will think alike on 
every subject. Prom motives of policy, or of 
prudence, men may consider it judicious to 
observe a silent neutrality, but the under 


Unity in Variety . io<5 

currents of tlie mind will not be influenced by 
such considerations. 

[Now let us examine the principles of the 
science of Medicine, with its collateral adjuncts 
of Surgery and Physiology. Take, for instance, 
the treatment of disease, and let us try whether 
the theology of matter, so to speak, possesses 
any advantages over the theology of the mind, 
in the way of uniformity of opinion. 

There are hardly any two physicians who 
are altogether agreed in their mode of dealing 
with disease. Yariety of opinion has, in this 
department, passed into a proverb. Each 
fancies that his own remedy is a specific. The 
important point, however, is, that regardless of 
the variety of remedial agents, the sick man 
ordinarily recovers. And the reason is just 
this, that there is a well-known principle 
relative to disease, which, for the most part, 
presents a Unity of plan, upon which are 
based all the varieties of treatment. Disease , 
if left alone , has a tendency to wear itself out , unless 
indeed it should first of all wear out the man.* 
* See Note— Appendix. 


I IO 


Unity in Variety . 


This is the general principle, and all the 
various remedies, whether alkaline or acid, 
bleeding or blistering, stimulating or deplet- 
ing, are merely so many efforts to assist 
nature in throwing off the poison in the blood. 
Whatever variety there may exist in the form 
of treatment, the law of disease is one and 
invariable. 

The same variety of opinion may be ob- 
served in the science of physiology. Both at 
home and abroad the greatest divergence of 
theory exists between men who may be regarded 
as experts in their profession. When we see 
such men as Rokitansky, and Wedl, and 
Yogel, and Kolliclier, and Virchow on the 
Continent — and Darwin, and Owen, and Kirkes, 
and Huxley in England, differing in opinion 
on matters of even prime importance, in 
physiology, it should teach us how absurd it is 
to suppose that the human mind can be 
mechanically moulded into unvarying uni- 
formity. 

Religion, then, is not the only department of 
knowledge in which variety of opinion exists. 


Unity in Variety. i r i 

If it were necessary, it could be shown that 
with regard to several of the most obvious 
facts in physiology, the accumulative research 
of ages has been completely baffled. What 
can it tell us, for instance, of the functions of 
the spleen, or of the pineal gland in the brain, 
or of the superrenal capsules, or the choroid 
plexus, or the appendix vermiformis, and 
other portions of the human body, which 
necessarily exercise an important influence on 
the physical economy and well being of man ? 
On some of these subjects the wisest of men 
are profoundly ignorant. Who has ever been 
able to explain the use of the appendix 
vermiformis ? It really would appear, at first 
sight, as if it were only intended to do mis- 
chief ! We say nothing of the unsettled contro- 
versies about the hippocampus minor, or of 
the homology of the several parts of the tem- 
poral bone, concerning the latter of which no 
two anatomists perhaps entertain the same 
idea. The unsolved problems, therefore, in the 
world of Nature, ought to have the effect of 
teaching man to know his proper place, and to 


1 1 2 Unity in Variety . 

keep it. For they tell ns, that there are diffi- 
culties, as far above reason, as reason is above 
instinct ! 

It is, unquestionably, the duty of all men 
who love truth, to pursue it to every possible 
limit, but if, in this pursuit, they come to the 
brink of an unfathomable abyss, it is their 
wisdom to pause — feeling assured that the 
things “ they know not now, they shall know 
hereafter.” For want of this modest deference 
to the will of our Great Creator, men have 
rushed desperately to conclusions, as unworthy 
of true science as they certainly are at variance 
with common sense. 

In the study of Natural Science, how often 
should the eloquent words of Hooker* be sug- 
gested to us : — “ Dangerous,” he says, “ it were 
for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the 
doings of the Most High, whom although to 
know be life, and joy to make mention of His 
name, yet our soundest knowledge is to know, 
that we know Him not as indeed He is, neither 
can know Him ; and our safest eloquence con- 
cerning Him, is our silence, when we confess 


Unity in Variety. 1 1 3 

without confession, that His Glory is inex- 
plicable, His Greatness above our capacity 
and reach. He is above, and we upon earth ; 
therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and 
few.”* 

True genius, like that of Michael Faraday, 
can afford to admit failure. Science and Re- 
vealed Truth are never in a single instance 
opposed to each other. Every idea which we 
have derived from Science as to the form, the 
magnitude, the geology, or the productions of 
our globe are all of them in full accord with 
the Bible. It is only science, falsely so called, 
which is in any way opposed to Scripture, and 
whose disciples, “ puffed up ” with intellectual 
superiority, attempt to dogmatise upon what 
they do not understand. 

Until we know the whole of the case, it is 
worse than folly, as Bishop Butler observes, to 
draw any reliable conclusion from imperfect, 
or insufficient data. One cannot help revering 
the honesty of purpose of the old Greek Phi- 
losopher, who, when interrogated by his pupils 
* Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity. Book I. 200. 

8 


1 14 Unity in Variety . 

upon points which human ignorance can so 
readily suggest, but which human wisdom can- 
not so readily answer, was in the habit of using 
the simple and unaffected formula — “ I do not 
know .” iEschines, like all other true philoso- 
phers, could well afford to avoid what Lord 
Bacon calls “ seeming wise.” It is only the 
superficial meddler in science, who thinks it 
necessary to give a reason for everything. 
Hence, we so often see exhibitions of human 
weakness put forward in order to cover the 
want of power. 


CHAPTER XII. 


THE LANGUAGE OP ELOWEKS. 

“The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, 

Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers.” 

Wordsworth ( Excursion , Book IX.). 

T HE argument of unity amid endless variety 
finds an appropriate and interesting illus- 
tration in the manifold departments of tlie 
vegetable kingdom. On the connection be- 
tween plan and form , Botany, not less than 
Physiology, is replete with coincidences, both 
designed and undesigned. 

From the Lichen, on the Alpine summits, to 
the despised weed of the same order, on the 
Coral reef — from the parasitic fungus, visible 
only by means of high microscopic power, to 
the enormous parasite* in the Indian Archi- 
pelago — from the sweet-scented vernal grass 
“ in the dewy paths of meadows,” to the tree- 
like branching Bamboo of tropical climes, 
* Kafflesia. 


( 115 ) 


1 1 6 Unity in Variety. 

there are many varieties in form but only one 
plan. No man, at first sight, could believe it 
possible, that the common meadow-grass and 
the sugar cane are members of the same family. 
And yet the fact is so. The varieties in the 
order of grasses \_Gramineoe\, however appa- 
rently dissimilar in form, are all alike in their 
general features. 

Of the three hundred and twenty genera, 
including three thousand eight hundred and 
fifty species, whatever variety may exist as to 
the number and form of the different sets of 
bracts and the nature of the fruit, there is only 
one arrangement throughout the entire family 
which gives to it that unity of plan, whereby 
they are recognized as belonging to the same 
order. Wheat, oats, barley, rye, rice, maize, 
Guinea-corn, millet, &c., &c., which supply 
“ green herb for the service of man,” and the 
rye-grass, meadow-grass, sweet vernal-grass, 
cock’s foot-grass, Timothy-grass, and countless 
grasses besides, which “give food for the 
cattle,” are all members of one widespread 
family. They present the same peculiarities 


Unity in Variety . 1 1 7 

of organization and structure, however sepa- 
rated by continents and centuries. And, that 
which holds true with regard to the variety of 
the family of grasses, is equally true in the 
case of all other orders. There is the same 
variety of form, the same unity of plan. 

It would be hardly possible to conceive any- 
thing more monotonous, or less attractive than 
unvarying uniformity in the world of flowers. 
There is something always refreshing, always 
new, however intimately we may be acquainted 
with the face of Nature, or the loveliness of 
the landscape, in the wild luxuriance with 
which the hand of God has adorned the 
enamelled field. No man with any love of the 
sublime has ever crossed a solitary mountain, 
without being struck with the surpassing 
beauty of the heather, when arrayed in all the 
glory of its purple robes. What cultivated 
garden can vie with the exquisite coloring and 
distribution of Alpine vegetation ? Wlio that 
has ever passed a summer in the Alps — wan- 
dering at will among those wild flowers, whose 
perfume scents the desert air, and whose 


1 1 8 Unity in Variety. 

delicate tints are so admirably adjusted to each, 
in the localities in which they grow — has not 
felt, as it were, the incrustations of mortality 
and sin fall away from him, and that, like the 
chrysalis, he could willingly quit the fragments 
of his shell, and wing his flight into a higher 
and a purer state of being ? It is no wonder 
that our Great Creator has so often chosen the 
mountain for the manifestation of His Glory, 
and that its solitary haunts, with their magnifi- 
cent drapery, have been more than once changed 
into a gorgeous Temple of the living God. 

One reason, perhaps, why the soul is so 
elevated on these occasions, is the utter 
absence on every side of anything like human 
contrivance. We perceive at a glance the 
essential difference between Nature and Art. 
The order and harmony of the visible Creation 
presents nothing like the mechanical and arti- 
ficial arrangement of the clipped and bordered 
garden. Amid wild and majestic scenery man 
feels something of that sympathy between him- 
self and Nature, which Bocliefoucauldt terms 
“ a community of souls.” 


Unity in Variety . 1 1 9 

In looking over the whole extent of the globe, 
wherever vegetation has clothed its surface, the 
unpractised eye of man may see nothing but 
irregularity and confusion, yet, under the 
guidance of natural science, there emerges an 
arrangement of exquisite beauty and precision, 
indicating, at every step, the existence of the 
all-pervading principle of Unity in Yariety. 
There is, then, just as little analogy in the 
world of flowers, as in every other department 
of Nature, between the ever-varying beauty of 
the Divine workmanship, and the existence of 
a dull and exclusive system of artificial uni- 
formity. And, here, it may not be out of place 
to notice the vague and indefinite manner in 
which men of a certain school of Philosophy 
use the abstract term, Nature. 

In considering the manifold variety of the 
Divine handy work in Nature, it may be well to 
remember, that the laws by which Nature is 
regulated, and adorned, are not in themselves 
executive. There is a tendency in some minds 
to regard them in this light, and this has been 
the source of some very erroneous views of the 


120 


Unity in Variety . 


system of the universe. “Nature is another 
name for an effect whose cause is God.” The 
Divine Being cannot be shut out from His 
works. This idea would reduce Almighty God 
to a kind of nonentity. It would have the effect 
of placing the Creator in solitary grandeur, 
according to the Epicurean philosophy, looking 
down at the development of His plans, watch- 
ing their progress, but not requiring to exercise 
constant and unwearied superintendence of the 
minutest event. In His operations the 
Almighty is neither deficient nor redundant. 
He does what is wanted, but he does nothing 
more. He creates animals with certain in- 
stincts, and plants with certain functions, but 
He does not then abandon them. The execu- 
tion of these laws is quite as wonderful and as 
miraculous as an original act of creative skill. 
The continuous exercise of Omnipotence is just 
as necessary as its first movement. To keep 
up the regular return of seed-time and harvest 
is a miracle, if possible, greater than the pro- 
duction of the first field of standing corn. 
When God created the first grain, which 


Unity in Variety. 12 1 

clothed the earth with waving abundance, He 
did not withdraw His special care from the 
harvests, which have ever since been bearing 
silent witness to His love and goodness. 
Every now and then, it is true, brief inter- 
ruptions have broken in upon the uniform ex- 
hibition of the course of Providence. A deluge 
once swept over the earth, destroying almost 
everything that breathed, and a sudden con- 
vulsion overthrew the cities of the plain. 
These facts declare, as plainly as possible, that 
all things do not continue as they were from 
the beginning of the Creation ; and, at the 
same time, they satisfactorily illustrate the 
moral deduction which teaches men to 

“Hail that Power, whose gracious will 
Wakes the tempest, pours the flood ; 

Taught by Him, each germ of ill 
Blossoms in expansive good.” 

Some persons look for a progressive develop- 
ment, and a gradual and eternal advance 
towards perfection, in the living beings that 
cover the earth, without further acts of creative 
power. Such philosophers forget, in their 


122 


Unity in Variety. 

speculations, not only the awkward fact of the 
Deluge, but the still more difficult one in pros- 
pect, when “ the earth, and the works that are 
therein, shall be burned up.” And then there 
shall be “a new earth.” 

It has been eloquently observed by Profes- 
sor Balfour, that “we cannot but honor the 
man, who, by his genius and talent, has been 
enabled to develop one of the great laws of 
Nature, and who feels and acknowledges that 
he has been the humble instrument to lift the 
veil, to a certain extent, which conceals the 
working of the Almighty ; but we have no sym- 
pathy with that discoverer in science, who, 
puffed up with intellectual superiority, puts the 
laws which he has elucidated in the place of the 
Creator , whose personality and ever-working 
Omnipresence he ignores.* 

The Bible represents God, not only as the 
Great Creator, but as the Eternal Distributor 
of all things. He did not make the world, and 
then turn it out of his hands to go, of itself, as 
a man makes a watch. No! according to the 
* Manual of Botany. 


Unity in Variety. 


123 


Bible, He is tlie present mover as well as the 
original maker, and through every corner of 
this crowded universe “ He givetli [i.e., is giving] 
to all, life, and breath, and all things.” (Acts 
xvii. 25.) 

We hear a good deal about “ general laws,” 
as if God had merely set the world in motion, 
and, having adjusted the machinery, left it to 
work on by its own force. But what are laws 
unless there is some one to carry them out? 
The Great Author of these laws must be always 
working in them and by them, and upholding 
them in their integrity and efficacy. There can 
be no doubt whatever, that the wisdom and 
power of God are displayed in what we call 
“ laws,” but to suppose that they have inherent 
powers of execution, irrespective of the constant 
superintendence of the Almighty Lawgiver, is a 
species of Materialism, worthy only of the dim 
lights of Pagan Philosophy. 

The Word and the Works of God are always 
consistent with themselves. In the latter, 
nothing strikes us with such force as the 
adaptation of means to meet the wants of the 


124 


Unity in Variety . 


creature. We find everywhere laws adapted to 
the varying conditions of the universe. In the 
science of Botany this is peculiarly manifest. 
If we look abroad, and take a comprehensive 
view of the vegetation with which the earth is 
covered, and consider the varied aspects under 
which plants are distributed through the dif- 
ferent quarters of the globe, it will be found 
that they bear a relation to each other, and to 
the different climates and conditions with which 
they are surrounded. From the Poles to the 
Equator, flowers are to be found everywhere. 
But each climate has its peculiar vegetation, 
and every alteration of altitude has a corres- 
ponding alteration in some particular feature 
in the flowers which inhabit those regions. 
Thus, for example, the vegetation of the plains 
is different from that of the mountains. The 
floral gifts which adorn the margin of streams 
and rivers differ in detail from those which 
relieve the monotony of the crags and peaks. 
In fact, everywhere we see how admirably the 
Great Creator has exemplified “the different 
administrations” of the kingdom of Nature, 


Unity in Variety . 


125 


while we can no less clearly trace the “ varie- 
ties” to the same ever-working Lord of all. 
The beautiful description of Highland Botany, 
by the learned Professor, from whom we have 
already quoted, will serve to illustrate our 
meaning. 

“The Alpine Yeronica, displaying its lovely 
blue corolla on the verge of the dissolving snow 
— the Forget-me-not, of the mountain summit, 
whose tints far excel those of its namesake of 
the brooks — the Woodsia, with its tufted fronds, 
adorning the clefts of the rocks — the snowy 
Gentian, concealing its eye of blue in the ledges 
of the steep crags — the Alpine Astralagus, en- 
livening the turf with its purple clusters — the 
Lychnis, choosing the stony and dry knoll for 
the evolution of its pink leaves — the Sonchus, 
raising its stately stalk and azure heads in spots 
which try the enthusiasm of the adventurous 
collector — the pale-flowered Oxytropis, con- 
fining itself to a single British cliff — the Azalea, 
forming a carpet of the richest crimson — the 
Saxifrages, with their white, yellow, and pink 
blossoms, clothing the sides of the streams — 


126 


Unity in Variety. 


the Saussurea, and Erigeron, crowning the 
rocks with their purple and pink capitula — the 
pendant Cinquefoil, blending its yellow flowers 
with the white of the Alpine Cerastiums, and 
the bright blue of the stony Veronica — the 
stemless Silene, giving a pink and velvety 
covering to the decomposing granite — the yellow 
Hieracia, whose varied transition-forms have 
been such a fertile cause of dispute among 
Botanists — the slender and delicate grasses, 
the chickweeds, the carices, and the rushes, 
which spring up on the moist Alpine summits 
— the graceful ferns, the tiny mosses, with their 
urn-like thecae — the crustaceous dry lichens, 
with their spore-bearing apothecia ” — all these 
varieties of vegetation, what are they but illus- 
trations, to compare small things with great, of 
the diversity of modes of worship in the King- 
dom of Grace, each adapted to the peculiar 
position of the worshippers, and the exigency 
of the Church ? The more minutely we examine 
the phenomena of the world of Nature, and 
compare them with the inspired history of 
religion, and such facts as we notice in the 


127 


Unity in Variety. 

living world before our eyes, the more reason 
shall we have for seeing the analogies between 
the order of Nature and Revealed Truth, not 
only in their general characters, but also in 
their particular application to the Church of 
God. 

And is it not desirable to draw off the soul 
from the feverish agitation of contending merely 
about “ meats and drinks,” as if the ordinances 
of “touching, tasting, handling,” constituted 
the essence of vital religion ? There is nothing 
on earth which so effectually allays the irrita- 
tion of spirit, which so often results from a 
morbid religious sentiment as the contemplation 
of Divine Wisdom in the beautiful economy of 
Nature. What a high and holy privilege it is 
to walk with God in the garden of Creation, 
and with the volume of inspiration in our 
hands, to hold converse with the “invisible 
things ” which are clearly seen in the wonders, 
and the beauties of the visible creation which 
surround us ! The humblest weed — the moun- 
tain daisy, “ the wee crimson-tipped flower,” — 
will ever afford something to examine, and a 


128 


Unity in Variety. 


great deal to admire. He who thus interro- 
gates Nature, will never find himself either 
solitary or depressed. His companions, though 
mute, have a language that speaks to his heart 
in tones of love and gentleness, that “ soothe, 
and heal, and bless.” 

Apart, altogether, from the Catholic princi- 
ple of true religion, which such contemplation 
tends to produce, there are other advantages, 
no less valuable, which spring from the 'same 
source. The man whose thoughts are tinged 
with the reflected beauties of the magnificence 
of a tropical forest, or the enamelled meadows 
of the Alps, or the more homely joys of walks 
among the wild flowers, in the fens, or moors, 
or even among the quiet and sequestered 
haunts of rural life, will not shorten his days by 
over-weening cares about riches, or worldly 
honors, things that 

“Play around the head, but come not near the heart.” 

The flowers of the field, and the leaves of the 
forest, are in nothing more remarkable than 
their variety. They have their general resem- 
blance, and their particular dissimilarity. In 


Unity in Variety. 129 

this respect Botany presents the same analogy 
as Comparative Anatomy. We have already 
stated, that from a single tooth, or hone, the 
Physiologist can construct the entire animal, 
even though it had lived at a period long 
anterior to the Reign of Man. So, in like man- 
ner, it is easy for the Botanist to determine the 
species of a plant from its specific and invari- 
able outlines when examined by itself. This is 
all the more wonderful when we remember 
that on the same stem, or indeed on any other 
stem, no two leaves will be found exactly alike. 
It would be an endless task to specify and 
particularize. In a word, all the works of the 
Creator present the same family likeness, and 
everywhere we see the eternal principle of 
a unity of plan amid boundless varieties of form. 
In Botany all is elegance and beauty. Its 
pleasures spring up at our very feet. As we 
walk, Nature literally strews our path with 
flowers. Health, serenity of mind, and quiet 
thoughtfulness, on the ways of Him whose 
name is “Wonderful,” are the sure rewards 
of all our labor. Nature, under such cir- 
9 


130 Unity in Variety . 

cumstances, is ever new, ever abounding in 
inexhaustible variety. In winter, among the 
recesses of the woods, with their numerous 
tribes of mosses — in spring, with its hawthorns, 
its violets and primroses — in summer, with its 
boundless wealth of fruits and flowers — or 
autumn, with its variegated tints — there is 
always something to study, while new dis- 
coveries will suggest new trains of thought. 
Morning, noon, and “ dewy-eve,” all present 
their fragrance and their ever-varying features, 
so that the wise provisions and abundant re- 
sources of Nature ever yield to an observing 
mind as much pleasure as variety. And, day 
by day, the beauty, and harmony, and wisdom 
of the Creator become more and more manifest, 
and in the same proportion the soul insensibly 
takes up the chorus, 

“Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers, 

In mingled clouds, to Him whose sun exalts, 

Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints 1” 


CHAPTER XIII. 


THE ARCHETYPE AND ITS MODIFICATIONS. 


‘Nature I whence sprang thy glorious frame? 
My Maker called me, and I came.” 


Francis. 


HATEYEB question may be raised about 



t T the exact meaning of the abstract terms, 
Nature and Law , there can be none whatever 
as to the existence, in all periods, of a unity of 
plan and purpose. It has been well observed 
by Professor Owen that, “ of the nature of the 
creative acts by which the successive races of 
animals were called into being, we are ignorant. 
But this we know, that as the evidence of unity 
of plan testifies to the oneness of the Creator, 
so the modifications of the plan for different 
modes of existence, illustrate the beneficence 
of the Designer.”* 

In the natural history of the vertebrate 
animals, there is evidence of a common typical 


* Orr’s Circle of the Sciences. No. 2. 


( 131 ) 


132 Unity in Variety. 

structure. That is to say, we have a skeleton 
which is, as it were, the model after which all 
other skeletons have been formed, some pre- 
senting a nearer, and some a more remote 
resemblance to the perfect type. An original 
standard with many modifications is the great laiv 
of Creation. The human face is a remarkable 
instance of this. Our limited faculties can 
hardly comprehend how, in such a narrow 
compass, such a variety of modifications, such 
diversity of lines and lineaments could possibly 
exist. One can hardly realize the fact, that a 
Cherokee Indian — a Soudan Negro — a native 
Australian — a Mongol Tartar, and an Anglo- 
Saxon are all descended from a common pa- 
rentage. And yet, when we come to examine 
things more closely, there is no greater difficulty 
in believing in the unity of the human race, 
than in the variations of plants and flowers, 
propagated from the same seed. We are 
distinctly told that, “ by the sons of Noah were 
the nations divided in the earth after the flood.” 
It would require a considerable amount of the 
most unimpeachable testimony to set aside this 


Unity in Variety. 


133 


plain declaration of Scripture. As jet, nothing 
approaching to reliable evidence has been 
adduced to negative the Mosaic record. The 
present manifold variety of the human family 
appears, at first sight, to present irreconcilable 
difficulties and confusion ; yet, that confusion 
is merely the unknown intermixture of laws , and 
if we were in a position to understand the 
whole of the case, the problem that all human 
creatures now living have descended from a 
single pair, and from a common type, might not 
seem so difficult of solution. That the fact is 
so, we simply believe, not only from the declara- 
tion of Scripture, but from the analogy of 
Nature. 

The great Archetype of creative skill on 
earth is — Man. During the long succession of 
ages that preceded him, all the creatures that 
existed upon the globe were gradually coming 
nearer and nearer to the perfect type, which, 
in the counsels of the Most High, was to wind 
up the series when man appeared. The 
four ages of Nature may be classified as 
follows : 


134 


Unity in Variety . 


1. The Reign of Fishes. 

2. The Reign of Reptiles. 

3. The Reign of Mammals. 

4. The Reign of Man. 

During the first age Fishes were the masters 
of creation. Then the air-breathing animals 
were very few. During the second age Reptiles 
assume the chief place and authority over the 
other classes. The air-breathing animals were 
more numerous. During the third age Ter- 
restrial animals of colossal dimensions abound, 
and then the Mammals obtain the mastery, 
and occupy the most prominent position. 
Finally, comes the chief work of the great 
Master-Builder, the most perfected of all 
created beings on this earth — for whom all the 
others were merely preparing the way — Man ! 
All the creatures that came before man were 
so many symbols, as it were, of the future 
model after which by anticipation they were 
already formed. Man, in fact, was the con- 
summation of the vertebrate type. “It is 
evident that there is a manifest progress in the 
succession of beings on the surface of the 


Unity in Variety. 135 

earth. This progress consists in an increasing 
similarity to the living fauna, and among the 
vertebrata, especially in their increasing re- 
semblance to man. But this connection is not 
the consequence of a direct lineage between the 
faunas of different ages. There is nothing like 
parental descent connecting th v em. The fishes 
of the Palaeozoic age are in no respect the 
ancestors of the reptiles of the Secondary age, 
nor does man descend from the mammals 
which preceded him in the Tertiary age. 
The link by which they are connected is of a 
higher and immaterial nature ; and their con- 
nection is to be sought in the view of the 
Creator Himself, whose aim, in forming the 
earth, in allowing it to undergo the successive 
changes which Geology has pointed out, and 
in creating successively all the different types 
of animals which have passed away, was to 
introduce Man upon its surface. Man is the 
end towards which all the animal creation has 
tended, from the first appearance of the first 
Palaeozoic fishes.”* 

* Agassiz and Gould’s Comparative Anatomy. Sections 
689 , 690 . 


J 36 


Unity in Variety . 


The succession of animals on the surface of 
the globe, and their distribution, opens up to 
us a most wonderful and magnificent idea 
of the Great Master-Builder’s plan. Thou- 
sands of years before that plan was developed, 
the minutest details of it were foreseen, and, in 
some instances, announced. He who alone 
can see the end from the beginning, and in 
whose sight a thousand years are as one day, 
is alone capable of understanding or explain- 
ing the necessary relation of each part to 
the whole, and the special ends which they 
fulfil. For example — the vast stores of coal, 
granite, marble, salt, iron, silver, and gold, 
thousands of years ago were laid up in the 
bowels of the earth, and remained there until 
the proper moment had arrived for their 
utilization. Those inexhaustible provisions for 
Hie necessities of man, and for the develop- 
ment of his inventive and intellectual faculties, 
clearly betoken the providence of God ages 
before the appearaneo of the human race upon 
the earth. The creation of man was not an 
afterthought. It was one of the facts fixed in 


Unity in Variety . 137 

the counsels of tlie Most High, from all eternity. 
And when the time came round in the revolu- 
tion of ages, for the entrance of man upon 
his pre-destined habitation, he found that 
everything had been settled for him in advance. 
No person can look into these arrangements 
without seeing the clearest indications of 
design. Well, then, what is true with regard 
to the wants of man’s mere bodily existence, 
as connected with his very frail and transitory 
life on earth, is equally true with regard to his 
moral wants, and in the higher and the more 
enduring state of being — beyond the grave. 
For these necessities also, ample provision has 
been made. How far back in the ages of 
eternity this provision had been anticipated, is 
beyond the range of human inquiry. It were 
worse than foolish to attempt to speculate 
upon what has never been revealed. But, we 
do know, that, in the love and providence 
of God, at least four thousand years, according 
to the ordinary reckoning, before the appear- 
ance of “the Second Man, the Lord from 
Heaven,” it was provided and predicted, that 


138 U?iity in Variety . 

in the fulness of time “ the seed of the woman 
should bruise the serpent’s head.” Accord- 
ingly we see in the inspired history of religion, 
ever since, a succession of ages, or dispensa- 
tions, gradually preparing the way for the 
advent of the Messiah. Each dispensation 
had its special end, which, when it was accom- 
plished, was superseded by another, until the 
birth of Jesus Christ. Now, what the ages of 
Nature are to the first Adam, and the physical 
world, the ages or dispensations of religion 
are to the second Adam, and the moral world. 
As Geology reveals a succession of changes 
which the earth has undergone, so the Bible 
places before us a succession of dispensations 
which the Church has undergone. Geology 
presents to us in its medals and models 
of creation, the successive types of animals 
which have passed away, after having served 
the purposes for which they were created ; so, 
in like manner, the Bible reveals to us the 
types and symbols of the successive dispensa- 
tions which have been preparing the way for 
“better things to come,” and having fulfilled 


139 


Unity in Variety . 

their appointed ends, they in their turn become 
extinct. Thus, as in the Kingdom of Nature, 
we have the reign of fishes, reptiles, mammals, 
and, last of all, Man ; so, in the Kingdom 
of Grace, we have the reign of Patriarchs, 
Priests, Prophets, and last of all, the Man 
Christ Jesus. 

In the age of the Patriarchs, the Church was 
in its infancy. In the age of the Priests, under 
the Mosaic ritual, it advanced into childhood. 
But under the dispensation of the Gospel, it 
attained its majority. And as we look back 
upon the geological period of extinct species, 
and admire the skill and wisdom of our Al- 
mighty Maker, so we turn to the successive 
dispensations of religion in the Old Testament, 
which, we are told, were “ types for the time 
then present,” and only preparing the way 
for the “time of reformation,” when Christ 
should appear “ an High Priest of good things 
to come.” What the fossil remains of extinct 
animals are to the student of Geology, so the 
Patriarchal and the Levitical “petrifactions,” 
so to speak, are to the student of the New Testa- 


140 Unity in Variety . 

ment. These systems have had their day. 
They all have “ perished with the using,” and 
have prepared the way for the present dispen- 
sation. The analogy holds good in another 
respect. The recognition ( says Professor 
Owen) of an ideal exemplar in the vertebrated 
animals, proves that the knowledge of such a 
being as Man must have existed before Man ap- 
peared ; for the Divine Mind which planned the 
Archetype, also foreknew all its modifications.” 
It has been already stated that the animals of 
the vertebrate type which preceded Man, were 
so many previous indications of the future 
model after which, by anticipation, they were 
formed. So, in the same way the Church of the 
New Testament had its anticipations, under the 
types and symbols of the Mosaic economy. 
There is hardly a doctrine, under the present 
spiritual reign of the Church of Christ, that had 
not its types “ in the letter ” under the previous 
administrations. For example, the Scape Goat 
— the Brazen Serpent — the slaying of the Birds 
in an earthen vessel over running water,* are 
* Leviticus xiv. 5. 


Unity in Variety. 141 

each clearly symbolical of Him who “ His own 
self bare our sins in His own body on the 
tree.” That exhaustive Atonement was the 
Archetype, after which, by anticipation, the 
types under the Old Testament had been 
formed. Our Blessed Lord’s allusion to Himself 
in the third chapter of St. J ohn’s Gospel, leaves 
no room for conjecture with regard to the Brazen 
Serpent. Thus we see that in Creation, as in 
Redemption, there is a unity of plan, and a 
variety of form, or, in the words of our Redeem- 
er, “ My Father worketh hitherto and I work.” 

Now, if we apply these principles to the so- 
called Catholic revival of the Church in these 
days, it will appear evident, that we are going 
back instead of going forward. In point of fact, 
instead of becoming more and more spiritual, 
the Church, in certain quarters, is becoming 
more and more carnal. And, if things continue 
in that direction , when our Blessed Lord returns 
to earth, He will find His Church lapsed into 
the reign of Judaism, with all its “ weak and 
beggarly elements ” of symbols, and shadows. 
This would present an anomaly quite as great 


142 


Unity in Variety. 


in Religion, as if Science were to go back to the 
Reign of Fishes, or of Reptiles, to illustrate the 
progress of the Divine workmanship in Nature. 

If it be assumed that the Church is a Divine 
institution, it may reasonably be supposed, that 
it would be in unison with all the other works of 
God. Are we to suppose that tbe Church of 
Christ is the solitary exception to the general 
law, throughout the whole framework of 
Creation ? Has our All-Wise, and All-Merciful 
Maker enriched the grass of the field, which 
to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, 
with that exquisite and endless variety which 
constitutes its chief beauty, and inflicted upon 
the noblest of all His works the dull routine of 
artificial uniformity? The rainbow presents, 
perhaps, the loveliest picture of unity, and yet 
the variety of its colors constitute its peculiar 
charm. What should we think of a man who 
conceived the idea of reducing it to uniform 
whiteness, and of decomposing, if such were 
possible, “ the crescent of hope,” by some 
chemical process, until color after color were 
abstracted ? The result would be that the bow 


Unity in Variety . 


143 


itself would disappear, leaving the zealous 
advocate of uniformity to gaze only on the dark 
cloud on whose bosom it rested. The Church 
is privileged to claim God for its author. And, 
therefore, it is only natural to expect that the 
footprints of the Divine Creator should in this 
instance correspond with all His other handi- 
work. Hence we have “ different administra- 
tions but the same Lord.” The varied tints of 
the external machinery of the Church of God 
are, as it were, so many complimentary colors 
which harmonize with each other and the 
whole. An original standard, with many 
modifications, but all presenting a family 
likeness, is manifestly the great law of Cre- 
ation. 

The truth is, that just as in Nature so in 
Grace, the Lord Almighty has mercifully pro- 
vided for variety without discord, difference 
without opposition, shades of opinion without 
diversity of sentiment. If it were intended 
that all men should think alike on the subject 
of religion, why did St. Paul say, “Let every 
man be fully persuaded in his own mind”? 


144 Unity in Variety . 

On the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel all 
Christians are very nearly agreed, but on 
minor points of belief every man is left to the 
exercise of his individual liberty. That, on 
some subjects, the early Christians differed, is 
simply a matter of history, but, that such dif- 
ference did not operate as a barrier to Christian 
fellowship, is just as evident as any fact re- 
corded in the New Testament. The Archetype 
of the Christian Church is very simply set 
forth in the writings of the Apostles, and the 
various modes of Christian worship that exist 
in the world, are so many modifications of the 
Archetype. The analogy in Grace is thus 
coincident with that which exists in Nature, 
and we have an almost endless variety of 
cliurohes, whose members in their corporate 
capacity recognize “ One Lord, one Faith, 
one Baptism, one God and Father of all who is 
above all, and through all, and in you all.” 
Each individual believer is given Grace, ac- 
cording to the measure of the gift of Christ, 
while there is only “One Body, and One 
Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of 


Unity in Variety. 145 

your calling.”* The Apostle evidently recog- 
nized the obvious and beautiful principle of 
unity in variety, when he compared the different 
administrations of religion to the “eye,” “the 
ear/’ “ the hand,” and “ the foot.”t And he 
states the case simply and clearly when he 
says, “ As the body is one and hath many 
members, and all the members of that one 
body, being many, are one body, so also is 
Christ.” Each organ has its specific work and 
function, and all are in harmony with eacli 
other and the entire body, which derives its 
life and vigor from the Head — even Christ. t 
Pl^siologists tell us that the great connect- 
ing link between the various organs of the 
body is the nervous system. It joins these 
organs together, such as the heart, lungs, liver, 
brain, &c., and when this connecting link 
ceases, man dies. Now, in the same way the 
Apostle uses the metaphor in the Epistle of 
the Ephesians. The Church, in the language 
of allegory, derives its energy and vitality from 

* Eph. iv. 4. 

t 1 Cor. xii. Compare with Eph. iv. 15, 16 

10 


146 


Unity in Variety . 


tlie Head, and in the head is seated the great- 
est nervous centre of the body — the brain. 
So, according to the metaphor of the Apostle, 
the spiritual life and sustenance of the Church — 
“ the body ” — is derived from its “ Head ” — 
even Christ. Thus the harmony is complete. 
One Head — many members. One Church — 
many modifications. Instead, therefore, of 
aiming after “ supremacy,” or “ exercising 
dominion ” over each other’s faith, we should 
rather strive for the mastery over ourselves, by 
bringing into captivity every thought to the 
obedience of Christ. “Men’s hearts (in the 
words of Mr. Carlyle) ought not to be set 
agaimt one another, but set zvith another, and 
all, against the evil only” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


UNITY OF PRINCIPLE AMID VARIETY OF ADMINIS- 
TRATIONS. 

“United yet divided.” 

Gowper ( The Task). 

F ROM the remarks made in the preceding 
chapter it may be seen, that as there is an 
Archetype in the kingdom of Nature, so is it 
also in the kingdom of Grace. The simple 
formula of Catholic Truth, is, love to God, and 
for His sake, love to our fellow-men. To fear 
God, and in consequence to work righteous- 
ness, is the essence of Christian principle. 
However modified by existing circumstances, 
all who are bound together by this common 
tie of Christian fellowship, are true disciples, 
whatever be the outward form of their religious 
denomination. A God-fearing man, whose 
works bear witness to his faith, is a member 
of the Catholic Church wherever he may be, 

( 147 ) 


1 48 


Unity in Variety . 


or by whatever name lie may choose to call 
himself. He has become a child of God. 
Wherever and whenever this event has really 
taken place — in the secret chamber, or in the 
cloister, or in the Church, on the highway, or 
in the wilderness, over the pages of the Bible, 
or before the Throne of Grace, amid the 
smiles of childhood, or the sorrows of maturer 
age — the great result is substantially the same, 
viz. — enlargement of spirit, elevation of charac- 
ter, and correctness of moral feeling. It is no 
matter what color the sun may have burnt 
upon the cheek, or into what form of corrup- 
tion our natural depravity has moulded our 
constitution — the Gospel of the Grace of God 
was intended to meet man in every variety of 
character, and to encounter sin, in all its 
possible combinations. No man, according to 
the Bible, ever came into contact with the 
substance of true religion without a corre- 
sponding elevation of character. Saul of 
Tarsus, the furious persecutor, breathing out 
threatening and slaughter, became a meek and 
a long-suffering disciple. The Philippian 


149 


2 

Utcity in Variety. 

jailer — a distracted and terrified^ sinner, “re- 
joiced with all ‘his house.” Matthew the pub- 
lican — a proud and griping tax-gatherer, left 
all and followed Jesus. And Jacob, the guilty 
and lonely wanderer in the desert, proclaimed 
his desolate resthig-place to be “ the House of 
God — the Gate’ of Heaven.” Here are men of 
various castes, conditions, and creeds, all, as it 
were, moulded into one spirit (but not all of 
one denomination), by the simple efficacy of 
the Divine principle — love to God. 

The whole human family at any one time on 
earth, is the raw material, so to speak, from 
which disciples are made. It is by the preach- 
ing of the Gospel that they become disciples. 
And, wherever or whenever they hear that 
“ joyful sound,” and are led to receive it, they 
are members of the true Church of the Living 
God. 

The Church of England, with her usual 
comprehensiveness, recognizes and prays for 
“ the Holy Church throughout all the world,” 
in the prayer “ for all conditions of men.” She 
employs the language of Charity, and breathes 


i5o 


Unity in Variety. 


the very spirit of the Master. “0 God, the 
Creator and Preserver of all mankind, we 
humbly beseech Thee/or all sorts and conditions 
of men — that Thou wouldest be pleased to 
make Thy ways known unto them, Thy saving 
health unto all nations. More especially, we 
pray for the good estate of the Catholic 
Church — that it may be so guided, and govern- 
ed, by Thy Good Spirit, that all who profess 
and call themselves Christians, may be led into 
the way of Truth, and hold the Faith, in unity 
of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteous- 
ness of life.” 

All men, of all climes, are the springing field 
of God Almighty’s promise. “ Many shall 
come from the East, and from the West, and 
from the North, and from the South, and shall 
sit down in the Kingdom of God.” [Luke xiii. 
29.] To confine the Divine prerogative of 
mercy to the sect or community to which we 
may belong, is a narrow, paltry, island-view of 
things, which can be accounted for only on the 
general principle of selfishness — that great 
substratum of human motive and conduct. 


Unity in Variety. 1 5 1 

The favorite formula of the Church of Israel, 
that “Salvation is of the Jews,” received a 
significant rebuke, as well by our Lord’s sermon 
in the Synagogue of Nazareth, as by His 
pointed allusion to the faith of the Eoman 
Centurion. The religion of this Eoman officer 
had its source in the soul, and its evidence in 
the life. And He, who saw both the evidence 
and the source, addressed the Jewish by- 
standers, and said, “Yerily I have not found 
such faith, no, not in Israel.” Then immedi- 
ately he added words clearly indicating that 
many who seem to enjoy peculiar advantages 
from their adhesion to a visible Church, shall 
be rejected at the last, while others, who were 
regarded as beyond its pale, shall come and sit 
down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in 
the Kingdom. 

Some persons might charitably suggest, that 
this pious officer in the Eoman army came 
within the range of the “ uncovenanted mercies” 
of God. But the words of our Blessed Lord 
have no such qualification. They shine in the 
simplicity and purity of their native light. 


j52 


Unity in Variety . 


In every so-called Church on earth, and even 
beyond the merely mechanical boundaries of 
such Churches, there are true and faithful 
hearts, which have not bowed the knee to 
Baal ! “ There are some disciples even in 

Sardis.” In the book of Revelation, we read 
of the denunciation and doom of the mystic 
Babylon, and yet, the people of God were 
found dwelling in the midst of her. If they 
were not true believers, where would be the 
force and meaning of the warning to “ Come 
out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers 
of her sins, and that ye receive not of her 
plagues.” [Rev. xiii. 4.] 

The Jews were never so confident of their 
spiritual pre-eminence, as when they were in 
the very act of denying the Lord of life and 
glory, and preferring a murderer before their 
Messiah ! This may well suggest to us, that 
spiritual life is not regulated by the mere Church- 
system to which we belong. If the living Ark 
be not maintained in its own commanding posi- 
tion in the Holy of Holies, there is no honor to 
God, and no safety to man. In that commu- 


Unity in Variety. 1 53 

uion, the congregations may be numerous, the 
worshippers amiable, the temples magnificent, 
the ceremonies imposing, the priesthood de- 
voted, and the policy profound. But if the 
name, the doctrines, and the presence of 
Christ do not occupy the place which God 
has assigned to them, and which they so 
justly deserve — and that, not mechanically, but 
in spirit and in power — there is nothing really 
saving and sanctifying in His sight. All else 
may be beauty to the eye, and music to the 
ear, and flattery to the heart of man, but the 
Temple is a Spiritual vacuum — “ The Glory ” 
is not there. 

There are certain general principles of 
Church government laid down in the New 
Testament. God, who is the author, not of 
confusion but of order, has in the Old, as well 
as in the New Testament, made regulations 
for the decent and orderly observance of 
public worship, and the spiritual oversight 
of His people. But, admitting all this, we are 
also taught that “lie is not a JeAV who is one 
outwardly, neither is that circumcision which 


1 54 Unity in Variety . 

is outward in the flesh.” It is not the cowl 
that makes the monk. The mere robe of 
office does not invest its wearer with the 
inward and spiritual Grace, for which the 
Psalmist prays, when he says, “Let Thy 
priests be clothed with righteousness.” [Ps. 
cxxxii.] Hophni and Pliinehas had the robe 
of office, and yet they parted with the Ark 
of God, and brought shame and ruin upon the 
Church to which they belonged. Like them, 
we may have delegated authority — hereditary 
dignity — transmitted power — office — argument, 
and eloquence, but these are not the weapons 
for “ piercing asunder to the dividing of soul 
and spirit.” [Heb. iv. 12.] They cannot pene- 
trate and arrest the soul of man. No. It is 
the doctrine — the spirit — the example of Jesus. 
It is the mind of humility — the tone of feeling 
— the word of love — the life of righteousness. 
These are the influences that wind their way 
to the hidden man of the heart, and in language 
intelligible to the humblest, and the mightiest, 
they declare that “ the priests are clothed with 


Unity in Variety. 1 5 5 

righteousness, and that the saints sing for 
joyfulness.” 

Suppose, then, a system of rites and ceremo- 
nies to be the most scriptural imaginable, and 
enforced with the utmost strictness, and that 
not in a single particular is there the least 
divergence from the ancient routine of worship, 
yet still there might be no scriptural unit}'. 
Beneath the unvarying garb of ceremonial, 
uniformity, there may lurk a soul-destroying 
heresy, which, secretly but surely, disseminates 
its poison, while the people are slumbering, 
without the slightest suspicion of the mischief, 
on the easy cushions of formality. The form 
of Godliness remains, but the power has 
disappeared. Like insects* that deposit, in 
the bodies of caterpillars, eggs, which, when 
hatched, produce grubs that feed on the 
inward parts of their victims, till nothing is 
left but the empty skin, so the vitality of the 
Church may be insensibly impaired, till it 
be reduced to the mere shell of an external 
ritual— cheating the soul with skeletons of truth. 

* See Note. 


1 56 


Unity in Variety. 


“ The Apostles founded Christian Churches 
(says the late Archbishop Whately) all based 
on the same principles, all sharing common 
privileges. c One Lord, one Faith, one Bap- 
tism ’ — and all having the same object in view, 
but all quite independent of each other. And, 
while by the inspiration of Him who knew 
what was in man, they delineated those 
Christian principles, which man could not 
have devised for himself, each Church has 
been left, by the same Divine foresight, to 
make the application of those principles, in its 
symbols, its forms of worship, and its ecclesi- 
astical regulations ; and while steering its course 
by the chart and compass which His Holy Word 
supplies, to regulate for itself the sails and 
rudders, according to the winds and currents it 
may meet with,”* 

“ The Scripture exhortations to Unity, have 
been interpreted by some (says the same 
author) as requiring all Christians to live 
under a single ecclesiastical government ; and 

* Annotations on Bacon’s Essays, page 29. 


Unity in Variety . i5y 

the passages relating to -the Church,* and to 
the powers conferred on the Apostles, as 
obliging us to renounce all private judgment, 
and submit implicitly to whatever is decreed 
by the (supposed) Catholic Church. Now, this 
is, most emphatically, a practical question, 
since it involves, not this or that particular 
point of practice, but an indefinite number. 
Those who adopt the above interpretations 
must be prepared to acquiesce, at the bidding 
of their ecclesiastical rulers, in any , the most 
gross superstitions, and the most revolting 
moral corruptions, however disapproved by 
their own judgment, rather than exclude them- 
selves (as they think) altogether from the 
Gospel Covenant.” The Archbishop, in further 
dilating upon this subject, adds, that, “ the 
difference between Christians, as to this point, 
which for so many ages has divided so many 
millions, may be considered as not only the 
most important of all the divisions that have ever 
existed , hut even greater than all the rest put 
together” 

* Matt. xvi. 18, xvlii. 17. 


1 58 


Unity in Variety . 


Now, it is very important to bear in mind, 
that the great Apostle of the Gentiles knew no- 
thing, in his day, of any so-called Centre of 
Unity upon earth. The only idea which he 
seemed to entertain of Unity, was that of 
“ holding the Head, from which all the body, 
by joints and bands, having nourishment ad- 
ministered, and knit together, increaseth with 
the increase of God.”* The same idea is 
expressed in another epistle, “ the Head, even 
Christ, from whom the whole body, fitly joined 
together, and compacted by that which every 
joint supplieth, according to the effectual 
working in the measure of every part, maketh 
increase of the body unto the edifying of itself 
in love.”t Christ was the only Centre of Unity 
known to the Apostle. If it were otherwise, 
any language, however irregular or extrava- 
gant, might be justified in condemnation of St. 
Paul, when taking leave of the elders of Ephe- 
sus. The address he then delivered is still 
extant. Foreseeing the dangers to which the 


* Coloss. ii. 19. 


f Ephes. iv. 15, 16. 


Unity in Variety. i 59 

Church, at Ephesus would be exposed from the 
perversity of false teachers, in their own body, 
and of which, for the space of three years, he 
had been warning them, the Apostle tells them 
to “ take heed unto themselves” for, he adds, “ I 
know that after my departure shall grievous 
wolves enter in among you, not sparing the 
flock ; and of your oivnselves shall men arise, 
teaching perverse things to draw away disciples 
after them — Therefore Watch!” By every 
principle of honesty and candor, if St. Paul 
had any idea of a Supreme Central Church, 
provided as an infallible guide, to whose deci- 
sion, on matters of Faith, they might safely 
acquiesce, he most undoubtedly would have, on 
this occasion, directed them to that tribunal. 
Had he known anything about Peter, or his 
successors, or the Ecclesiastical figment, which 
later ages have invented as the source of final 
appeal when doubts or disputes should arise, 
it is simply impossible that he could have used 
such words as these : “Wherefore I take you to 
record this day, that I am pure from the blood 
of all men. For I have not shunned to declare 


160 Unity in Variety. 

unto you all the counsel of God”* It follows 
inevitably that lie knew nothing whatever about 
such a Centre of Unity. The case may be 
briefly stated thus : If St. Paul knew of such 
a tribunal as that which the Church of Rome 
sets up in the person of St. Peter, and his 
successors, and yet kept it back from the 
Elders of Ephesus, he was falsifying his own 
words. If he did not know of such a mode of 
resolving doubts, then, any Church assuming 
to possess such an authority, has neither war- 
rant nor counterpart for it in the Word of 
God. “Take heed to yourselves” — “watch,” 
and, “remember, that by the space of three 
years I ceased not to warn you night and day 
with tears.” There is not the most distant 
allusion to any other earthly source for protec- 
tion against the impending dangers. 

There are some who think that the beau ideal 
of the Christian Church is a single community 
on earth, combined under one form of Church 
government. Now, suppose that we were to 
apply this principle to the science of political 
* Acts xx. 26, 27, &c. 


Unity in Variety. 1 6 r 

economy, and that there was only one shop in 
the whole of Great Britain where men could 
buy any given article — what would be the 
inevitable consequence as regards the commo- 
dity and the cost ? All experience of monopo- 
lies, in any form, go to prove that we should 
have an inferior article at an exorbitant price. 
In like manner, if there were only one form of 
Church government, one Liturgy, one set of 
rites and ceremonies, and all pressed by one 
act of uniformity into superficial smoothness, 
there is not the slightest doubt whatever but 
that a result would be obtained, corresponding, 
mutatis mutandis , with monopoly in every other 
department. The Church, at best, consists of 
human creatures compassed with infirmities, 
and, therefore, liable to stamp their own 
temperament upon whatever they take in hand. 
That this is not a matter of conjecture, is evi- 
dent from the past and present condition of Italy, 
and other countries, subject to the ecclesias- 
tical despotism of the Roman Pontiff. Nay, to 
come nearer home, we find in the history of the 
English Church, during the last century, a state 
11 


162 


Unity in Variety . 


of things which contrasts unfavorably with the 
Church of England in the nineteetli century. 
There was then a great stagnation among both 
the clergy and the people. But, when other 
forms of Church government arose, the healthy 
results of friendly competition were manifest in 
the revival and the extension of the Church. 
It was not only never intended that there should 
be one exclusive religious corporation, but 
under the present condition of fallen human 
nature, the very worst thing possible for religion, 
would be the very state of things for which 
many good churchmen are sighing and praying ! 
It is not meant that there should be dissimilar 
and dissociated sects, each holding different 
forms of faith. By no means. The advance of 
Christ’s kingdom is grievously retarded by 
the discord and mutual ill-will which, unhap- 
pily, exists in Christendom. Such a state of 
things is inconsistent with the unity of the faith, 
and is directly contrary to the will of God. 
What we mean, is, that independent Churches 
holding “ the one faith, the one Lord, the one 
baptism,” so far from being antagonistic to true 


Unity in Variety . 163 

religion, rather tends to confirm it, by presenting 
a united testimony amid a variety of adminis- 
trations. 

It should never be forgotten, that indepen- 
dent administrations do not necessarily imply 
either hostile separation, and opposition, or 
erroneous doctrines on matters of faith. Dis- 
tinctness of administrations by no means in- 
volves disagreement. “There are (says St. 
Paul) differences of administrations but [they 
worship] the same Lord.” The Apostles did 
not, by any means, intend to encourage diver- 
sities of doctrine, and yet, they founded many 
churches, each distinct from the other, several 
even in the same province, which, though not 
at all at variance, were not placed under any 
common authority on earth, except that of the 
individual Apostle who founded them. And, 
in the earliest ages, the Christian Churches 
were reckoned by hundreds. It was in later 
times, and very gradually, that the claims of 
Rome, and Constantinople, to universal supre- 
macy were admitted.* 

* Archbishop Whately. 


1 6 4 Unity in Variety . 

In the present day, the Episcopal Church 
of America is distinct from the Church of Eng- 
land, not because it differs in doctrine, but 
because it is American. The Churches of 
Sweden, and Denmark, and other Protestant 
States, are not at variance with each other, 
though not subject to a common government. 
So, also, the Moravian Church — the Episcopal 
Church of Scotland, and, now, the Church of 
Ireland, under its new constitution. There is 
clearly a Unity of doctrine among all these 
Churches, notwithstanding the Variety of their 
forms of worship. 


CHAPTER XY. 


UNITY IN CHARITY. 

“ But lasting Charity’s more ample sway, 

Nor bound by time, nor subject to decay, 

In happy triumph shall forever live.” 

Prior. 

T HE Bible furnishes us with an account of 
the life of that order— that rare order — 
of men, who look upon the world and their 
fellow-creatures with the unfettered expansion 
of disinterested charity. They seem to have 
neither time nor room for the expression of 
mere private or personal feeling. Their 
practical regard to Truth, to Righteousness, 
and to God, flows on in such a mighty torrent 
and with such strength and swiftness, that 
scarcely anything else appears even for a 
moment upon its surface. They are so ab- 
sorbed in their great and glorious subject — 
God and and His salvation — that they treat 
everything else as comparatively trifling. In 

( 165 ) 


i66 


Unity in Variety. 

a calm and passionless manner, they exhibit a 
degree of self-denial, and make such sacrifices 
in the cause they have so much at heart, that 
they are far above the suspicion of partiality, 
or favoritism : “We seek not yours, but you”* 
is the noble sentiment that animates them all ; 
self-seeking is no part of their ambition. 
Their aim is man , regardless of creed, caste, 
or clime. Their mission is to proclaim Truth, 
and they do so with an unadorned simplicity, 
and an overwhelming regard to fact , which 
has no parallel in the history of mankind. 
Under the New Testament this is peculiarly 
striking. Indeed, in some instances, the 
Apostles seem to treat the mere outward 
observances of religion as a matter of second- 
ary consideration. “ I thank God (says St. 
Paul) that I baptized none of you, but Crispus 
and Gaius. For Christ sent me not to bap- 
tize, but to preach the Gospel. ”+ In the 
Epistle to the Colossians he does not hesitate 
to disparage certain “ ordinances after the 
commandments and doctrines of men.” He 
* 2 Cor. xii. 14. f 1 Cor. i. 14. 


Unity in Variety. 167 

broadly asserts that the test of discipleship 
was not to be decided “ in meat, or in drink, 
or in respect of an lioly-day, or of the Sab- 
bath.”* These institutions he terms “sha- 
dows,” while in the same passage he directs 
the whole force of his reasoning -to the living 
“Head, from which all the body increaseth 
with the increase of God.” He seems to tell 
us that there is something higher and holier 
than mere machinery, however excellent that 
may be in itself. For, after all, it must be 
admitted that the results of the machinery are 
the best, as they are the only practical tests of 
the machine. If (as Mr. Gibbon, t suggests) 
some of the ancient Fathers were to revisit the 
scene of their former labors, and examine the 
complicated nature, and the imposing splendor 
of the religious machinery which had succeeded 
the pure and spiritual worship of a Christian 
congregation, they would gaze with astonish- 
ment and indignation on the profane spectacle. 
But, we think that their spirit would be, per- 
haps, more stirred within them (if it were pos- 
* Coloss. ii. 16-22. f See Note. 


1 63 Unity hi Variety . 

sible), and their indignation still more excited, 
when they looked over the whole expanse of 
Christendom, and beheld — not the differences 
of the ontward administrations — but the raucor, 
the bigotry, and the intolerance which so 
painfully emerge from them all. Between 
Papal usurpation, High Church pretensions, 
and Low Church narrow-mindedness, and 
Sectarian wrangling and bitterness of spirit, 
they would have but comparatively little to 
select as worthy of their commendation. 

While the members of the different religious 
denominations hurl anathemas at one time 
against each other, and at other times against 
those outside their pale, and strictly maintain 
the distinctive badges of their respective 
“ orders,” as a matter of course, they keep up 
an exclusiveness which, so long as it exists, 
renders inter-communion an impossibility. 
Under these circumstances the Church of Eng- 
land, with her Episcopal succession, practically 
excludes from her pulpit, and from the 
Lord’s Table, men like Chalmers ; while the 
Church of Scotland, with her stern adhesion 


Unity in Variety . 169 

to Presbytery, looks with coldness and 
suspicion upon an administration based upon 
Prelacy. And thus, in a descending series, 
each sect, however little in point of spirit, or 
adherents, draws a cordon round its ramparts, 
and proclaims itself at war with the rest of the 
religious world ! There is, undoubtedly, variety 
enough in all this ; but, alas ! there is but little 
unity. It is not the spirit of the Master. His 
test for Church membership was simple and 
decisive. “ By this shall all men know that ye 
are my disciples if ye have love one to another.” 

All that is contended for in these pages, is 
distinctness of denomination, according to the 
analogy of Nature, but the diffusive spirit of 
Christian love and brotherhood, according to 
the analogy of Grace. In other words, the unity 
of the spirit in the bond of peace. 

Inter-communion, among those who “call 
themselves Christians,” regardless of artificial 
barriers which outwardly divide the Churches of 
Christ, ought not to be so very difficult for 
those who profess to be “ led by the Spirit.” 
In the Church of England we pray for this 


170 


Unity hi Variety . 


whenever we meet in public worship. And, if 
prayer have any meaning at all, it must be 
accompanied with a sincere desire, and effort on 
the part of those who pray to carry out to the 
utmost of their power, the actual object for 
which they seek the Divine assistance. Other- 
wise the whole ceremony becomes no better 
than the clashing of “ sounding brass, or of 
tinkling cymbals. Different administrations, 
divided from each other by external barriers, 
yet united in brotherly kindness and charity, 
are not necessarily hostile. We are forced, 
however, to confess, that such cordiality appa- 
rently does not at present exist, and, therefore, 
it may be urged that the views here put 
forward are incompatible with the existing 
condition of our fallen world. They might be 
thought more suitable to a period of Millenial 
happiness, when the present “ tempestuous 
state of human things” shall have rocked 
themselves to rest. But that, in the mean time, 
such unity must be regarded as Utopian ! It 
is admitted, that, unless the love of the Father 
be implanted, however feebly, in the children, 


Unity in Variety . 1 7 1 

there can be no real unity among the Churches. 
And anythiug like mechanical union would 
terminate, probably, in disappointment. There 
are obstacles, no doubt, to a system of spiritual 
union among Christians. But they do not 
arise from any shock which might be given to 
the really honest advocates of a decent and 
orderly public worship. No. They spring 
mainly from that inherent selfishness and ex- 
clusive dealing which is, unhappily, a marked 
feature in the history of human nature, 
especially as it appears in the combination of 
'parties for any purposes whatever. 

We should always keep clearly before our 
minds the essential difference between Unity 
in Variety, and Unity in Divinity. The former 
is a Divine law, but as a matter of fact, the 
diversity of opinion on the fundamental princi- 
ples of the Gospel produces, and, we are sorry 
to add, confirms discord and mutual ill will. 
Now, such a unity is neither a Divine law nor 
consistent with common sense. The apostolic 
greeting and benediction was addressed to “ all 
that in every place call upon the name of 


172 


Unity in Variety. 


Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. 55 * 
St. Paul, in this passage (says Dr. Bloomfield, 
in his Notes on the Greek Testament), “ means 
to represent Christians everywhere as on the 
same level, and having one common Master — * 
not only in Corinth, but everywhere.” Another 
Apostle, who is pre-eminently styled “the 
Apostle of Charity,” while laying down the 
most comprehensive views with regard to 
Christian unity, is very careful to draw the line 
between a true and a spurious liberality. St. 
John says, that “ whosoever abideth not in the 
doctrine of Christ,” whom he calls “ the True 
God and Eternal Life,” was not to be received 
into the house, “neither bid him God speed.”+ 
If we were to take our notion of liberality 
from common observation, or common conduct, 
we should be apt to imagine that it was by no 
means restricted in the sphere of its operations. 
The term “liberality,” as it is used in the 
world, is, generally speaking, a term of doubt- 
ful meaning — confused and loose in its signifi- 
cation. It conveys an indistinct idea. And, 
* 1 Cor. i. 2. f 1 John v. 20 ; 2 John x. 


Unity in Variety . 


173 


as each man is in the habit of interpreting it, 
with an eye to his own peculiar character or 
doctrine, the idea which it does convey is per- 
petually varying. In short, where the Word 
of God is not referred to as a standard, this 
term lies at the mercy of private judgment. 
Every man is at liberty to interpret liberality 
just as he pleases, and, accordingly, he draws 
the circle so as to include himself. By this 
means the word becomes so variable and 
confused in its meaning, that it is very seldom 
admitted in its true sense, and when it is ad- 
mitted, the world has many soft names, and 
many plausible excuses for it. An indifference 
to the honor and authority of God, acting 
under the sacred name of Christian Charity, 
has many methods of palliating and defending 
it. This false liberalism, is, at one time, so 
completely muffled, and at another, exhibited 
in a dress so artful and attractive, that if we 
had no other way of judging of its real nature 
but common conversation and conduct, we 
must inevitably come to a very false conclusion 
on the subject. How different, how totally 


174 


Unity in Variety . 


different is the representation of the Word of 
Truth. Here, Unity and Liberality have a 
determinate meaning. Here no man is at lib- 
erty to draw the circle as he pleases. Here we 
are plainly instructed in their nature, and we 
are fairly warned of the consequences of a lati- 
tudinarian compromise with opposite and con- 
tradictory religious principles. In one place, 
we are directed to regard “ even an angel from 
heaven ” as accursed, if he should presume to 
preach any other doctrine than that laid down 
by St. Paul. In another place, above referred 
to, we are called upon by St. John, not to ex- 
tend the ordinary rites of hospitality to any 
man, who “does not bring this doctrine.” It 
may be said, that this sounds harshly, and 
grates upon the ear. That may be so, but we 
are concerned only with the fact. And, so long 
as the writings of St. John are received as ca- 
nonical, and inspired, there is no way of remov- 
ing the apparent harshness, but by explaining it 
away, so as to get rid of the true drift and 
meaning of the injunction. The evident inten- 
tion of St. John was, to warn the Christian 


Unity in Variety . 


i/5 


lady, to wliom he writes, about receiving into 
her house any teachers such as those to whom 
he alludes, and of addressing them with the 
customary salutation expressive of friendly 
feelings. For, if she did this, it would imply 
that she gave some degree of countenance and 
approbation to their doctrine. This protest 
was not to be made, out of any unkind or 
uncharitable disposition towards such persons 
as individuals , but only out of regard to the 
Truth itself, and of the honor that is due to 
God. 

There is a good deal of moral courage ne- 
cessary in these times to act consistently in 
this matter. “The offence of the cross,” is, 
to-day, what it has been in all days, since Jesus 
Christ first proclaimed the Gospel to the world. 
“ Think not that I am come (says our Blessed 
Lord) to send peace on earth : I come not to 
send peace, but a sword. For I am come to 
set a man at variance against his father, and 
the daughter against her mother, and the 
daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 
And a man’s foes shall be they of his own 


176 Unity in Variety . 

household.” * This is not as fully understood 
as it ought to be. If it were, we should expect 
very different results from those which so many 
persons seem to regard as the perfection of 
Christian unity. All colors agree in the dark. 
It is the Light that reveals the delicate tints, 
and reveals every variety of shade. In like 
manner, it is evident that there is little difficulty 
in being Catholic , when there is no difference. 
If men have no convictions of their own, and 
regard all the points by which Christians are 
split up into various sections as nothing, then, 
forbearance and charity are words without force 
or meaning. Such Catholicity of spirit hardly 
deserves the name. There is in it no scope for 
the exercise of Christian courtesy, or charity. 
No one regards it as a virtue, for a man to 
abstain from sins for which he has no inclina- 
tion. And, in like manner, there is no true 
liberality in a man who embraces all doctrines 
as being equally true, or rejects them as being 
equally false. Very frequently this spirit of 
indifference is mistaken for a Catholic spirit. 

* Matt. x. 34, 35, 36. 


Unity in Variety . 177 

It is a very great mistake. For, in point of 
fact, this universal agreement with every re- 
ligionist is based either upon want of clear and 
distinct views of the Gospel itself, or else upon 
want of principle, or moral courage. To have 
decided views upon Christian doctrine ourselves, 
and still to look kindly and charitably upon 
those who differ from us, is a mark of a Catho- 
lic spirit. If, for example, a man tells us that 
he does not believe in the Divinity of our Lord, 
and, moreover, preaches and publishes his 
views upon that cardinal point of Gospel doc- 
trine, and that, notwithstanding this diver- 
gence from what we believe of essential truth, 
we still admit him to our pulpits, and to the 
Lord’s Holy Table, then we are simply com- 
promising our principles, and introducing 
spiritual anarchy and confusion into the Church 
of Christ. Come what may, and cost what it 
will, we are bound to protest against what we 
conscientiously believe to be error, while we 
carefully abstain from exhibiting ill feeling 
towards those whom we consider as the erring. 

12 


I 


178 Unity in Variety. 

It is remarked by Seneca,* that “ the greater 
part of mankind are angry with the sinner, and 
not the sin.” 

All ecclesiastical history affords ample evi- 
dence of this, and, perhaps, it is this tendency of 
corrupt human nature that so often puts us 
into bad temper with men who differ from us. 
We are all naturally much attached to what is 
our own, and we regard those who differ from 
us, as by that very act impeaching the sound- 
ness of our judgment, the honesty of our inves- 
tigation, or the mental calibre whereby we 
have been enabled to examine the doctrine in 
dispute. Now, here is the proper place for 
self-denial. A Catholic spirit consists in re- 
pressing the tendency to resentment, to cold- 
ness, to estrangement, and in cherishing a 
spirit of love, and gentleness, and forbearance, 
in spite of existing differences. It is when a 
man holds a sentiment different from our own, 
and, possibly, a very favorite sentiment of our 
own, that our real liberality is put to the test. 
To reconcile a conscientious with a Catholic 


De Ir&, ii. 28. 


Unity in Variety . 179 

spirit is the real difficulty of professing Chris- 
tians. 

There is one fact that we should always keep 
well in view — that the central bond of union 
among Christians ought to be the Holy Com- 
munion of the Body and Blood of our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ. That is called The 
Lord's Table — not the Table of this or that 
denomination, but the Lord’s. The question 
is, in what capacity are we assembled there ? 
Is it as Presbyterians? or Independents? or 
Baptists? Is it not rather as fellow Chris- 
tians? Under the symbol of that feast the 
blessedness of Heaven is typified, and, surely, 
there is something very anomalous and incon- 
sistent in our erecting impassable barriers, to 
keep away those whom, on the lowest grounds 
of charity, we expect to meet in the Great 
Feast above! The Christian Church should 
be a Church of Christians .* If the Church 
would return to its primitive unity, it must not 
only be sound in doctrine, but be genuine in 
the exhibition of primitive love. It must have 
* See Note. 


180 Unity in Variety . 

Jesus enthroned in its midst as the object of 
worship, and the centre of influence. At the 
same time, it must hold out the right hand of 
fellowship to His disciples, not in proportion 
to their agreement in secondary matters, but 
according as they hold the Truth, and exhibit 
the mind that was in the Great Master. The 
love of Christian brethren must be the love of 
Christ under a different form. And thus, 
loving Him “ that begat, they will love those 
who are begotten of Him,” and, then, unity 
without discord will speedily be accomplished. 
Until then — never. 

In this respect, the Church of England is the 
most Catholic of all Churches. She, in effect, 
throws the responsibility upon the individual 
communicant as to his own fitness, or not. 
Any man presenting himself at the Lord’s 
Table is permitted to receive the symbols of 
our Saviour’s one finished Sacrifice, without 
cause assigned, or question asked. Not so in 
other Churches. Unless you have received 
from the minister his “token” you are not 
allowed to communicate. There are some who 


Unity in Variety. 181 

insist upon this particular scrutiny as the 
correct method for distinguishing nominal from 
real believers. That may be so, but we con- 
tend only for the more liberal and comprehen- 
sive policy of the Church of England. The 
Apostolic Churches left each individual believer 
at liberty to examine himself \ and, so, to eat of 
that Bread, and to drink of that Cup. They 
employ the language of Charity, and breathe 
the very spirit of Catholicity. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


UNITY IN ERROR. 

“ Oh! hateful error, melancholy’s child! 

Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men 
Things that are not?” 

Shakespeare. 

I T should be borne in mind that there is such 
a thing as Unity in Error , as well as Unity 
in Truth . In the days of Elijah, the false 
Prophets were at unity among themselves. 
So were the Scribes and Pharisees, who con- 
sented to our Saviour’s Crucifixion. We also 
infer from our Lord’s words, that Satan is not 
divided against himself. It is not, then, merely 
unity, as such, that is a mark of the true 
Church, unless there be unity in the true faith. 
Nor is unity the mark of a pure Church, unless 
the members of the Church be bound together 
upon terms of obedience to Christ as their 
Great Head, of charity towards each other, of 
keeping the Faith unmixed with errors and 
innovations, and the public worship of God 
( 182 ) 


Unity in Variety . 


183 


free from manifest defects and forbidden prac- 
tices. Moreover, it is also quite possible that 
more truth may be professed even where there 
are discords, than where there are none. This 
is true of the various Churches of the Befor- 
mation. They labor under minor differences, 
principally of discipline, and yet they maintain 
the purity of the faith once delivered to the 
saints. The unreformed Church of Borne has 
superadded new and false doctrines, and per- 
verted some of the true doctrines bequeathed 
to the Church by the Holy Ghost. And yet, 
she outwardly presents the appearance of unity, 
though, in reality, she is rent asunder by in- 
testine discord. On the one side, there may 
be an over-valuing of questions of no great 
moment — a greater stress laid upon opinions, 
and practices, than is absolutely necessary — 
and an undue importance attached to certain 
rules of discipline, any, or all of which might 
be sufficient to interrupt Christian communion. 
On the other hand, gross errors may be main- 
tained with one consent, while comparatively 
unimportant differences may be so overruled 


184 


Unity in Variety. 


by authority and force, or by the sensible 
interests of the world, that notwithstanding 
those differences, communion shall not be 
hindered. But, nothing would be more un- 
reasonable than to admit the truth of a doc- 
trine, merely by the mark of unity among those 
who profess to believe it. 

The duty devolving upon all Christians in 
the present distracted state of Christendom, is, 
to do all that in them lies to set aside all mere 
technical distinctions, and to merge their minor 
differences into the practical unity of the 
Church in all essential points. All Christians 
should stand fast in “the faith which w r as once 
delivered to the saints.” That faith is contain- 
ed within the narrow limits of the New 
Testament. Any departure from that common 
creed of Christians, involves separation from 
the body — the Church. This being the faith 
which Christ came down from Heaven to 
establish in the world, and which the Holy 
Ghost inspired the Apostles to speak and write 
for our instruction, there can be no doubt 
whatever, that we should value it as the greatest 


Unity in Variety . 


t 85 


treasure which the Church possesses. We 
should proclaim our esteem and love for it, 
count everything but loss for the excellency of it, 
and acknowledge all who hold it to be of the 
One Body with us, regardless of mere outward 
ceremonies, or forms of worship. 

Let us endeavor, above all things, to maintain 
Unity in Charity. To those who are misled, as 
we think, let us try to evince good-will and 
courtesy as opportunity may offer, that we may 
convince them that practical Christianity is a 
Divine and holy thing, not dependent upon 
reciprocity of benefits, such as doing good to 
those who do good to us, or saluting our 
brethren only — a politeness in which the most 
worldly persons are capable of great perfection 
— but proving by absolute and unaffected 
kindness, and love unfeigned, that the religion 
of Jesus Christ has uprooted the maxims of the 
world, and planted a nobler disposition in their 
room. Let this Light shine, and they who see 
it will be impressed. And, although they may 
not worship in our denomination, yet they can- 
not resist the evidence of their senses. It is 


1 86 


Unity in Variety. 


not by what we say, but by what they see, that 
men recognize the peculiar features of Christ’s 
religion, and form their own opinions as to the 
honesty and integrity of our motives. This, 
after all, is the main point. A spirit of charity 
and sincerity, of humility and teachableness, 
love of truth, forbearing one another in love, 
will do more to overcome prejudice, and enable 
us to preserve “ the Unity of the Spirit in the 
bond of peace,” than all the arguments, and 
persuasions, and penal disabilities that Church 
and State combined have ever been able to 
produce. It is by the exhibition of an unearthly, 
and unselfish spirit, that we can ever hope to 
bind together, in one, those who differ from us 
in reality, or in appearance. Heaping “ coals 
of fire ” upon the heads of those whom we are 
inclined, from any cause, to regard as schis- 
matics, or heretics, is a surer way to mould 
and melt their hearts, than by standing aloof, 
or, it may be, “ passing by on the other side.” 

“So, artists melt tlie sullen ore of lead 
By heaping coals of fire upon its head ; 

In the kind warmth, the metal learns to glow, 
And, pure from dross, the silver runs below.” 


CHAPTER XVII. 


ANALOGY BETWEEN THE COURSE OF NATURE AND 
REVEALED TRUTH. 

“ Thus, if we Nature’s works exhume, 

Or o’er past history range, 

We find both Man and Nature’s doom 
Is one perpetual change.” 

Richardson's Geology. 

B ISHOP BUTLER’S oft quoted aphorism, 
as to the corresponding difficulties in the 
Word and in the Works of God, receive confir- 
mation when we compare some well known fact 
in Natural Science, with an equally well known 
fact in Revealed Truth. How frequently do we 
find that men of insufficient, or inaccurate 
information, regard the difficulties of Scripture 
as if the Bible alone were the only production 
of Almighty God, in which unsolved problems 
existed. Now we think it is quite evident, as 
we hope to prove presently, that there are 
difficulties in Natural Science quite as perplex- 

( 187 ) 


1 88 Unity in Variety. 

ing as any that are to be found in Holy Writ. 
Suppose we take, as an example, the fossil re- 
mains of Mollusca , found in the chalk formation. 
One of the most remarkable of these fossil 
Mollusca is the Ammonite. It is an undoubted 
fact of Natural history, that there was a time 
when the Ammonite and the Nautilus lived 
together, w r hen in the poetic language of the 
geologist, 

“Hand in hand, from strand to strand, 

They sailed in mirth and glee ; 

These fairy shells, with their crystal cells, 

Twin sisters of the sea !” * 

But the Ammonite has long since ceased to 
exist. The entire genus has become extinct. 
The Nautilus and the Ammonite occur in the 
earliest formations, and are found side by side 
up to the chalk, which becomes the last resting 
place of the Ammonite. Not a single specimen 
of that genus has ever been found in deposits 
that overlie the chalk, whereas the Nautilus 
survives at the present day. These twin-sisters 
were then and there parted forever. 

* See Appendix. 


189 


Unity in Variety . 

“ They came at last to a sea long past, 

But as they reached its shore, 

The Almighty’s breath, spoke out in death, 

And the Ammonite lived no more ! 

So the Nautilus now, in its shelly prow, 

As over the deep it strays, 

Still seems to seek, in bay and creek, 

Its companion of early days.” 

There stands the truth stamped on the medals 
of Creation. Can any person explain it ? The 
difficulty may be stated in the words of scrip- 
ture, where we perceive a corresponding princi- 
ple of “ election,” and with equal perplexity, as 
regards the reason. One has been taken, and 
the other left. Why should the Nautilus be 
spared ? There is no essential difference as 
regards their “ order.” They are both “ shell 
fish,” yet, one still survives, the other is ages 
ago extinct. 

In like manner, when we read in the Bible, 
that God “ sets up one and puts down another,” 
or, when it is said, “ Then shall two be in the 
field; the one shall be taken and the other left.” 
[Matt. xxiv. 40.] We can assign no earthly 
reason for this, beyond the simple fact that the 
Almighty Sovereign “ doeth according to His 


190 Unity in Variety . 

will, in the armies of heaven, and among the 
inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay 
His hand or, say, what doest Thou.” — [Daniel 
iv. 35.] 

There are certain facts in the “ two Theolo- 
gies,” as Hugh Miller calls them, which never 
have been, and perhaps never, this side the 
grave, will be explained. “The secret things 
belong unto the Lord,” and it is surely no mark 
of the disciple of true science to “ rush in ” up- 
on forbidden ground, and dare to dogmatize on 
the mysteries, either of Creation or of Bedemp- 
tion. The ephemeral notoriety which may be 
gained by the suggestions of eccentric genius, is 
but a feeble recompense compared with the un- 
hallowed distinction which such men attain for 
their daring enterprise, in venturing “ to intrude 
into those things which they have not seen, 
vainly puffed by their fleshly mind.” When- 
ever we encounter such facts as “ the testimony 
of the rocks ” displays, it should make us feel 
how small man is, how limited his powers of 
observation, and how impossible it is to form a 
connected chain of events from the remote and 


Unity in Variety . 19 1 

mysterious past, to the actual and tangible 
present. 

It has been well observed by Owen Felltham 
that, “ God has left three books to the world, 
in each of which He may easily be found — the 
Book of the Creatures [Creation], the Book of 
Conscience, and His Written Word. The first 
shows His omnipotence — the second His jus- 
tice — and the third His mercy and goodness. 
So, though there be none of them so barren of 
the rudiments of knowledge, but is sufficient to 
leave all without excuse : yet in them all I find 
all the good that ever the Heathen, or the 
Christian hath published abroad. In the first 
is all Natural Philosophy — in the second all 
Moral Philosophy — in the third, all true Di- 
vinity. To those admirable pillars of all human 
learning (the Philosophers), God showed Him- 
self in His omnipotence and justice, but seemed, 
as it were, to conceal His mercy. To us 
Christians, He shines in that which out-shines 
all His works — His mercy. Oh ! how should 
we re-gratulate His favors for so immense a 
benefit, wherein secluding Himself from others, 


192 Unity in Variety . 

He hath wholly imparted Himself to ns ? In 
the first of these (The Book of Creation) I will 
admire His works, by a serious meditation of 
the wonders in the creatures. In the second 
(the Book of Conscience) I will reverence His 
justice, by the secret and inmost checks of the 
conscience. In the third (the Bible), embrace 
His love, by laying hold on these promises, 
wherein He hath not only left me means to 
know Him, but to love Him, rest in Him, and 
enjoy Him forever.” 

With three Bibles open before us we can have 
no valid excuse, either for ignorance or un- 
belief, except that which attaches to philoso- 
phers falsely so called — “ professing themselves 
to be wise, they became fools. They became 
vain in their imaginations, and their foolish 
heart was darkened.” — [Bom. i. 21, 22.] With 
a man suffering from color-blindness, it is only 
waste of time and words to hold any argument. 

“Perversa confirmat Audacia.” 

The fool of old, said only in his heart, there is 
no God, but the modern fool says it openly, 


Unity in Variety. 


193 


and boldly claims the reputation of wit and 
good sense, while he does not like to retain 
God in his knowledge, but disputes His Being, 
Attributes, and Providence. 


13 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


“ Learn each small people’s genius, policies, 

The ant’s republic, and the realm of bees ; 

How those in common all their wealth bestow, 

And anarchy, without confusion know ; 

And these forever, tho’ a monarch reign, 

Their separate cells and properties maintain.” 

Pope ( Essay on Man). 

T HESE lines from Pope express, to some 
extent, the idea of Unity in Variety, in the 
sense in which it is regarded in the foregoing 
pages, viz., separate administrations, governed 
by the One Lord, illustrating the same faith, 
baptized into the same Spirit, and all bearing 
their united testimony to the same loving 
kindness. We are so apt to exalt unduly our 
own system, whatever it be, that we find 
it difficult to look very kindly upon any other. 
We imagine when we hear of “ so many sects,” 
that there can be nothing but inextricable 
confusion among them all. Yet, possibly, a 
careful examination might teach us that the 
case is not so bad as we suppose. It might 
( 194 ) 


Unity in Variety . 195 

perhaps appear, on a closer inspection, that 
“ all discord is harmony not understood.” This 
subject is quaintly illustrated by Owen Fell- 
tham, thus : “ The whole world is kept in order 
by Discord ; and every part of it is but a more 
particular composed jar. Not a man, not 
a beast, not a creature, but have something to 
ballast their lightness. One scale is not always 
in depression, nor the other lifted very high, 
but the alternate wave of the beam keeps 
it ever in the play of motion. From the 
pismire of the tufted hill, to the monarch 
on the raised throne, nothing but hath some- 
what to awe it. We are all here like birds 
that boys let fly in strings. When we mount 
too high we have that which pulls us down 
again. What man is it which lives so happily, 
which fears not something that would sadden 
his soul if it fell? Nor is there any whom 
calamity doth so much tristitiate, as that 
he never sees the flashes of some warming joy. 
Beasts with beasts are terrified and delighted. 
Man with man is awed and defended. States 
with states are bounded and upholded. And, 


196 Unity in Variety. 

in all these, it makes greatly for the Maker’s 
glory that such an admirable harmony should 
be produced out of such an infinite discord. 
The world is both a perpetual war and a wedding. 
Heraclitus called a Discord and Concord the 
universal parents. And to rail on discord, says 
the Father of the Poets, is to speak ill of Na- 
ture. As in music, sometimes one string is 
louder, and sometimes another, yet never one 
long, nor never all at once. So, sometimes one 
state gets a monarchy, sometimes another. 
Sometimes one element is violent, now another. 
Yet, never was the whole world under one 
long ; nor were all the elements raging together. 
Every string has his use, and his tune, and 
his turn.”* 

In the previous chapter it has been shown 
that the universal law in the kingdom of 
Nature exhibits endless modifications from a 
single primary type. The variety of forms in 
the works of Creation have their counterpart 
in the diversity of modes of worship in Re- 
demption. There is, everywhere, a unity of 
* Felltham’s Resolves. 


Unity in Variety . 197 

plan and purpose, emerging from apparent 
confusion. 

We have endeavored to point out tliat the 
study of Natural Science, so far from interfer- 
ing with the spirituality of the Divine law, only 
tends to make it shine forth in the simplicity 
and purity of its native light. Godliness, 
though His crown of Glory, and diadem of 
beauty, is after all but one of the Almighty’s 
works ; and it is of the very essence of the 
consistent believer’s mind to acknowledge Him 
in aU His works. He delights to recognize 
His goodness in the mechanism of Nature, 
and the mind of man, and the progress of 
society, as in the “ great and wide sea,” or 
“ the cedars of Lebanon,” or “ the springs 
which run among the hills,” or “ the wine that 
maketh glad the heart,” or “the birds,” or 
“ the high hills,” or “ the young lions,” or the 
other countless instances of the Divine handy- 
work that never have been, and never can 
be counted. This fallen and guilty planet 
which is now alienated from God, and from 
which every instance of the Divine goodness 


98 


Unity in Variety . 


might justly be withdrawn, even that is full of 
His riches. And the large and sanctified 
mind of the believer discerns and rejoices in 
those riches, wherever they are seen to sparkle. 

When the Psalmist, who had a large share of 
this generous spirit, looked abroad upon the 
mighty fields of Creation, we find him contem- 
plating the wonders of Nature, and the arts of 
life, and the labors of man,* with an admira- 
tion as pure, though not as exalted, as that 
which arose from the salvation of God, and 
elsewhere he offers them as kindred instances 
and illustrations of the “ mercy that endureth 
forever.”! Pope’s well known lines may illus- 
trate this idea : 

“See him from Nature rising slow to Art ! 

To copy Instinct, then, was Keason’s part ; 

Thus, then, to Man the voice of Nature spake — 

Go, from the Creatures thy instructions take.” 

The following extract from Bacon’s “ Advance- 
ment of Learning ” probably suggested these 
lines to the Poet. “ They who discourse of 
the inventions, and origin of things, refer them 

* Ps. civ. f Ps. cxxxvi. 


199 


Unity in Variety. 

rather to Beasts, Birds, and Fishes, and 
Serpents, than to Man. So that it was no 
marvel (the manner of antiquity being to con- 
secrate inventors) that the Egyptians had 
so few human idols in their temples, but 
almost all brute. Who taught the raven in a 
drought to throw pebbles into a hollow tree 
when she spied water, that the water might 
rise so as she might come to it ? Who taught 
the bee to sail through such a vast sea of air, 
and to find the way from a field in flower 
a great way off, to their hive ? Who taught 
the ant to bite every grain of corn she burieth 
in her hill, lest it should take root and grow?” 
There can be but one answer to these queries. 
God, their Almighty and All Merciful Maker 
taught these creatures everything adapted not 
only to their wants, but to their little amuse- 
ments! Bacon might have asked, who taught the 
Nautilus how to ascend from the depth of the 
ocean to the surface of the illuminated waters, so 
as to enjoy half-an-hour’s sunshine, sport with 
its companions, and then return to what has 
been so beautifully termed “ its august dwell- 


200 


Unity in Variety . 


ing ” ? Oli ! none but the Great, the Good, 
the Gracious Father of all, who is “loving 
unto every man, and whose tender mercies are 
over all His works.” — [Psalm cxlv. 9.] 

There is a vague, sour, and indiscriminate 
mode of denouncing the world, and all that it 
contains, as an unqualified mass of misery, 
corruption, and disorder, which is as plainly 
contradicted by matters of fact, as it is plainly 
repugnant to the spirit of the Bible. Fallen as 
this world is, there are things in it which essen- 
tially profit a little. The wonders of Nature, 
the arts of life, the discoveries of science, the 
immortal mind of man, and the abstract 
processes of thought, have a certain degree of 
beauty and utility, independent of all considera- 
tion of sin, or godliness. And the spirit of the 
Gospel, which is a spirit of gladness, recognizes 
them. Seeing everything through its own pure, 
clear, and delightful color, it is quick to observe 
“whatsoever things are true, and whatsoever 
things are lovely,” and cheerfully prizes them to 
the full extent of their value. 

Every man imbued with the same spirit, 


Unity in Variety. 


201 


tinges the objects around him in the light of his 
own large and generous mind. The spirit of 
true religion is a spirit of light and love. The 
Church of God is privileged to enjoy largely 
this spirit, and it is important in this our day to 
breathe a little of it out. And, surely, no one 
can say, that there is not ample scope for its ex- 
ercise ! The concerns of human life are so 
varied and entangled, and subject to such rapid 
and complicated changes, that there is no man 
beyond the sphere of our sympathy and love. 
The throbbings of the human conscience, the 
complicated wants of the heart, the varying 
capacities of the mind, and all the hopes and 
longings of the immortal spirit, afford endless 
opportunities for the true elements of Christ’s 
religion — Love and Self-denial. 

Surely, then, we must have somehow forgot- 
ten the weighter matters of the Gospel, and 
have reverted to the old Pharisaic casuistry 
about “ meats and drinks,” “ the anise and the 
cummin,” when such painful scrupulosity is 
exhibited in mere outward ordinances of Church 
worship, while the great and comparatively 


202 


Unity in Variety . 

deserted path of human fellowship is stretched 
out before us. This is, after all, the main 
point. And it speaks badly for all parties, if 
while they can wrangle about such trifles as 
St. Paul’s “cloak,” or “the parchment that he 
left at Troas,” or the length of a chasuble, or 
the color of the robe of office, whether it should 
be white or black, and such like, they, yet, can 
have so little real love in their hearts for each 
other, as to regard those who differ from them 
as if they were scarcely better than wild beasts ! 

Jansenists and Jesuits, Gallicans and Ultra- 
montanes, Dominicans and Franciscans, hate 
each other with that refined hatred peculiar to 
Ecclesiastics ! The history of Port Royal, and 
the long series of persecutions to which the 
Jansenists were exposed by their brethren in 
the same Ghurcli, show that even in religious 
communities sometimes great perverseness 
dwells. The bickerings and jealousies, the 
action and counteraction of the various in- 
dependent churches, Baptists, Independents, 
Wesleyans, and so forth, do not add much by 
way of edification. Aud the rupture between 


Unity in Variety . 


203 


Free Kirk and tlie old established Kirk in 
Scotland has produced bitter fruits that will 
probably “last for aye.” All this, of course, 
is both bad and sad. But it is important to 
ask, is there nothing to account for this ano- 
malous state of things? Yes, we think there 
is a cause. All this sectarian wrangling and 
bitterness of spirit must ultimately be traced 
to the great disturbing element — Sin — which, 
coming in among human principles and pas- 
sions, has disarranged the order and harmony 
of the Church of God. And, here is just the 
trial of the faith and patience of the saints. 
Sin has marred the peace of the Church by 
introducing spiritual tyranny and superstition, 
and, therefore, it is only as the light and the 
love of the Gospel infuse principles directly 
opposed to the effects of sin, that the members 
of Christ’s universal Church, however separated 
by mechanical boundaries, can prove to the 
world, that though they are thus artificially 
divided, yet they are in spirit and in love, 
united. 

When the disciples are urged to “ contend 


204 


Unity in Variety . 


earnestly for the faith once delivered to the 
saints,” they are not required by the law of the 
New Testament to lay aside the essential fea- 
tures of the Christian religion. The weapons 
of their warfare are said to be altogether spiritual. 
They are directed to approve themselves good 
soldiers, “ by pureness, by knowledge, by long- 
suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by 
love unfeigned, by the Word of Truth, by the 
power of God, by the armor of righteousness 
on the right hand, and on the left, by honor 
and dishonor, by evil report and good report.”* 
If these things be in us, and abound, we shall 
neither be barren nor unfruitful in the real 
work of the Gospel. Depraved and talented 
ingenuity may pervert the truth of God, but 
neither evil angels, nor evil men can ever 
neutralize the efficacy of these weapons of the 
Christian’s warfare, or render his arrows point- 
less. They go straight to the mark, through 
the joints of the harness, to the hidden man of 
the heart, and they become mighty through 
God, to the pulling down of strong holds. In 
* 2 Cor. vi. 6, 7, 8. 


Unity in Variety. 2o5 

language intelligible to the humblest and the 
mightiest they say, “ Come along with us ; we 
wish to do thee good.” Charity never faileth. 
When even a portion of true religion itself 
shall be no longer necessary, this noble dis- 
position will survive forever, 

“When even Faith, and Hope shall die, 

One lost in certainty, and one in joy, 

’Twill stand before the Host of Heaven confest, 
Forever blessing, and forever blest.” 

Finally, — It may not be altogether out of 
place, before drawing the subject of these 
pages to a close, that we should impress upon 
our readers the value and the source of true 
religious feeling. 

The substance of true religion is, God mani- 
fest in the flesh. Have we come into contact 
with Him? Has the love of God in Christ 
visited our soul ? Can we, by a corresponding 
elevation of character, bear testimony to its 
value? Religious feeling derived from any 
other source, however beautiful it may seem 
to the eye of man, is but the tinge of the 
evening cloud that passetli away, and leaves 


206 Unity in Variety . 

its votary in darkness. But, when it is derived 
from the living substance of true religion — the 
Lord Himself — it is as the morning dawm, 
which shines more and more unto the perfect 
day! 

The Royal Psalmist, sitting on a throne 
surrounded by the gay, and graceful accom- 
paniments of regal splendor, compares his 
view of the world to the feeling of a grown 
child towards the nourishment for which he 
had lost his taste. The Prophet Agur prays 
for deliverance from its allurements. Habak- 
kuk declares the spirit of a believer to be 
independent of its favors. And, when the 
Apostle St. Paul would illustrate the state of 
his mind towards the splendid world in which 
he figured, he compares it to the view which a 
passing stranger might be supposed to take of 
a dying malefactor, or the still colder glance 
of the same malefactor at the scene around 
him when his eye is just glazing in death ! 

Have we, then, really come into contact with 
the substance of true religion ? If we have, it 
can scarcely be unknown to us. It is by far the 


207 


Unity in Variety. 

most important event which can happen to any 
child of man, between his cradle and his grave. 
And when it takes place in the inward spirit of 
the mind, it affects the very source of intelli- 
gence, and consciousness, and recollection. 
It cannot, therefore, happen unperceived. It 
is not meant that we should measure our 
spiritual condition by any extraordinary ap- 
pearance, or by endeavoring to ascertain the 
first flash of light and feeling in our souls. 
We are not speaking of the initial moment 
when we may have been first struck by the 
conviction of sin, but of the general and 
habitual result of the Grace of Christ, in 
contact with the nature of man. The com- 
mencement of vital religion is, sometimes, like 
the growth of the grain of mustard seed — very 
slight and very slow — and when things change 
by insensible progression, it is not easy to 
mark the precise moment at which the one 
begins, and the other terminates. For ex- 
ample, Night and Day. And, though we 
cannot define the initial instant, no man 
in possession of his faculties can question the 


208 Unity in Variety . 

result. The night has passed into the day. 
We are told, when certain persons belonging 
to the Synagogue of the Libertines, and others, 
were disputing with the first martyr of the 
Christian Church, that they were not able 
to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which 
he spake. And, although his disputers, as 
very often happens in such cases, substituted 
clamor and abuse for truth and soberness, 
yet, such was the overwhelming power of true 
religion in the soul of Stephen, that “ all that 
sat in the Council, looking steadfastly at him, 
saw his face as it had been the face of an 
angel.” In like manner, though one cannot 
expect such miraculous manifestations in these 
days, yet, if “ the light of the glorious Gospel of 
Christ hath shined in our hearts to give the 
light of knowledge of the glory of God in Jesus 
Christ,”* we, too, shall be to some extent angel- 
like, and they who see us will be impressed, 
and we shall gain adherents to the cause of 
Christ, though we were born dumb, and never 
opened our mouth in any other controversy 
* 2 Cor. iv. 5, 6. 


209 


Unity in Variety. 

during our lives. The light of this controversy 
will gi ye form to every other, and without it every 
other will prove comparatively worthless. St. 
Paul, in his Epistle to the Ephesians,* says 
that the unity of the faith is dependent on our 
knowledge of the Son of God. And, therefore, 
just in proportion as we see the largeness that 
is in Him, in the same proportion shall we see 
the littleness of everything else. With such a 
spirit generally diffused throughout the Church 
of Christ, there should not be any practical 
difficulty in carrying into effect the principle 
involved in the well known formula, viz. : — 

In things necessary— Unity. 

In THINGS INDIFFERENT — LIBERALITY. 

In All things — Charity. 

* Ephes. ir. 13. 


14 



APPENDIX. 


NOTE A.— Page 35. 

As an instance of the evil results of Ecclesias- 
tical intolerance against the promoters of Natural 
Science, the history of Galileo furnishes a melan- 
choly example : — 

“ On the 5th March, 1616, a decree of the 
congregation of the Index condemned all books 
which taught the Copemican system, but neither 
Galileo nor any one of his books was specified. A 
few months after Galileo was called before the 
Inquisition, and Cardinal Bellarmine commanded 
him not to teach by word or writing the Coperni- 
can system. He promised obedience, but was at 
the same time so certain that he knew the truth, 
he could not be silent. His “ Dialogue on the 
Ptolemaic and Copernican Systems” (a discussion 
between three fictitious persons) was published in 

( 211 ) 


212 Appendix . 

1632. The discussion is conducted between a 
Copernican and a Ptolemaist. The wit and irony 
of the third speaker is turned against the Ptole- 
maist, who comes off the worse in the argument. 

“The Inquisition considered this publication 
an evasion of his promise, and the feeble old man, 
seventy years of age, with broken health, was 
cited before the Inquisition. By a solemn sen- 
tence, signed by seven Cardinals, he was con- 
demned to certain penances, and to be imprisoned 
at the pleasure of the Inquisition. His friends 
were anxious to save him from punishment, and, 
at their urgency, he was induced, against his 
better judgment, to make a solemn abjuration of 
his belief in the motion of the earth, whispering, 
however, to one of his friends on rising from his 
knees, c And yet it does move.’ The apologists 
for the Inquisition say £ that Galileo trifled with 
the authority to which he professed to submit, 
and was punished for obstinate contumacy, not 
for heresy.’ The sentence of the Inquisition 
against Galileo was based on the charge of heresy. 
The charge appears in some respects not unlike 
that preferred against the Apostles before the 
Heads of the Jewish Church. They were pun- 


Appendix. 


213 


ished for their contumacy in standing to the truth, 
notwithstanding the plea of Gamaliel. And it is 
clear from the account (Acts, ch. iv.. v.), that the 
High Priest and his Council then would, if they 
could, have precluded the Gospel of ‘ peace on 
earth and good will to men* from ever being 
proclaimed to the world. 

“ In a decree of August 13th, 1634, the congre- 
gation solemnly condemned the Dialogue of 
Galileo under the hand and seal of the alleged 
Infallible Head of the Roman Church. ' Prom 
that date the name and book of Galileo have kept 
their place in all the Indexes issued from Rome 
for about two hundred years, and at length in the 
year of grace 1835, the name of Galileo and his 
Dialogue silently disappear from the Index issued 
in that year. This course of procedure cannot 
be regarded by honest men as a repeal of all the 
Edicts issued by infallible authority against the 
Copernican system. There is no admission that 
Galileo held the truth, and the Inquisition the 
falsehood. So solemn a sentence of condemna- 
tion of an innocent man, in justice, claims as 
solemn a revocation of the unjust sentence. The 
bare omission in 1835 of Galileo’s name and book 


214 Appendix. 

from the Index, does not, however, cancel the 
decree of 5 March, 1616, which condemns the 
Copernican doctrine as false and contrary to 
Scripture .” — Life of Galileo , L. U. K., 1833. 

“ John Milton, in his ‘ Areopagitica/ alluding 
to his travels in Italy, writes : — ‘ There it was 
that I found and visited the famous Galileo, 
grown old, a prisoner to the Inquisition, for 
thinking in Astronomy otherwise than the Fran- 
ciscan and Dominican licencers thought.’ It is 
obvious, from many lines in the Paradise Lost , 
that Milton sympathized with the heretical opin- 
ions of Galileo ; but let the ‘ heretic ’ Galileo be 
allowed to speak for himself : — ‘ I am inclined to 
believe that the intention of the Sacred Scriptures 
is to give to mankind the information necessary 
for their salvation, and which, surpassing all 
human knowledge, can by no other means be 
accredited than by the mouth of the Holy Spirit. 
But I do not hold it necessary to believe that the 
same God who has endowed us with senses, with 
speech, and intellect, intended that we should 
neglect the use of these, and seek, by other 
means, for knowledge which they are sufficient to 
procure us : especially in a science like Astronomy, 


Appendix. 


2l5 


of which so little notice is taken in the Scriptures, 
that none of the planets, except the sun and moon, 
and, once or twice only, Venus, under the name 
of Lucifer, are so much as named there. This, 
therefore, being granted, methinks that in the dis- 
cussion of natural problems we ought not to begin 
at the authority of texts of Scripture, but at 
sensible experiments and necessary demonstra- 
tions : for, from the Divine Word, the Sacred 
Scripture and Nature did both alike proceed ; 
and I conceive that, concerning natural effects, 
that which either sensible experience sets before 
our eyes, or necessary demonstrations do prove 
unto us, ought not, upon any account, to be called 
into question, much less condemned, upon the 
testimony of Scriptural texts, which may under 
their words couch senses seemingly contrary 
thereto/ 

“ An edition of Newton’s Principia, edited by 
the Jesuits, PP. Le Seur et Jacquier, was pub- 
lished in 3 vols. 4to. at Geneva in 1742. The 
following declaration of the Editors is printed on 
the seventh page of the third volume : — c Newtonus 
in hoc tertio Libro telluris motse hypotheism 
assumit. Autoris propositiones aliter explicari 


2l6 


Appendix. 


non poterant, nisi eadem quoque facta hypothesi. 
Hinc alienam coacti sumus gerere personam. 
Cseterum latis a summis Pontificibns contra tellu- 
ris motnm Decretis nos obsequi profitemur/ 
That is : — * Newton, in thin third booh , assumes the 
hypothesis of the motion of the Earth. The proposi- 
tions of the author could not be explained otherwise , 
than by making the same hypothesis. From this 
circumstance , we have been compelled to personate 
the character of another ; but we profess to obey the 
decrees made by the supreme Pontiffs against the 
motion of the Earth ’ ! ! ! 

“ The authority for this is to be found in the 
two following propositions contained in the Sen- 
tence of the Inquisition on Galileo, in 1633 : — 
4 The proposition that the Sun is in the centre of 
the world and immovable from its place, is ab- 
surd, philosophically false, and formally heretical ; 
because it is expressly contrary to the Holy 
Scriptures. The proposition that the earth is not 
the centre of the world, nor immovable, but that 
it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is also 
absurd, philosophically false, and, theologically 
considered, at least erroneous in faith.” * 

A Pastoral for the Times , by a Cambridge Undergraduate. 


Appendix . 


217 


NOTE B.— Page 51. 

“ Monstrous forms of error,” &c. 

(a) . The following extract is taken from the 
celebrated Annotations of the Eoman Catholic 
New Testament, published by Supreme Authority 
at Eheims in 1582. On the words in the xvii. chap, 
of Eevelation, 6th verse, “Drunken with the 
blood of the saints,” &c., we thus read : 

“The Protestants foolishly expound it of Eome, 
for, that there they put Heretics to death, and 
allow of their death in other countries, but their 
blood \i.e ., the blood of Protestants] is not called 
the blood of saints, no more than the blood of 
thieves, man-killers, and other malefactors, for the 
shedding of whose blood, by the order of justice, 
no commonwealth shall answer.” These Annota- 
tions were re-published by the order and authority 
of the Irish Eoman Catholic Bishops in 1818! 
The Testaments so published and sanctioned by 
ecclesiastical patronage, may be seen in the 
University Libraries at Cambridge, Oxford, Dub- 
lin, or in the Library of the National Club, 
London. 

( b ) . The following abnormal results of intense 


2l8 


Appendix. 


devotion to religious exercises, may prove interest- 
ing to Professors of Anatomy, to whom the 
alleged facts may, possibly, be unknown, in conse- 
quence of their not being minutely acquainted 
with the lives of the saints. 

The Reverend F. W. Faber, D.D., late Superior 
of the Brompton Oratory — a man of great emi- 
nence as a scholar, and Fellow of his College at 
Oxford — is the author of the Life of Saint Philip 
Neri, Apostle of Rome, &c., &c., 2 vols. 8vo., 
London : Richardson. 1849. On page 19, vol. i., 
we read as follows : — “ When he [St. Philip] was 
29 years old, God gave him , among other graces , a 
miraculous palpitation of the heart, and a no less 
wonderful fracture of the ribs.” As it is always 
interesting to know the cause of such lesions, and 
as the diagnosis is thereby considerably assisted, 
the following account of the fracture may not be 
out of place. “ One day (says Dr. Faber), a little 
before the feast of Whitsuntide, he [St. Philip] 
was making his accustomed prayer to the Holy 
Ghost, for whom he had such a devotion, that he 
daily poured out before Him most fervent prayers, 
imploring His gifts and graces. When he was 
made Priest, he always said at Mass, unless the 


Appendix. 219 

Rubric forbid it, the prayer, Deus cui omne cor 
patet [0 God, to whom every heart is open]. 
Now, while he was impatiently demanding of 
the Holy Ghost, His gifts, there appeared to the 
Saint a ball of fire, which entered into his mouth, 
and lodged in his breast ; and herewith he was 
suddenly surprised by such a pleasure of love, 
that he was unable to bear it, and threw himself 
on the ground, and like one trying to cool him- 
self, he bared his breast, to abate in some 
measure the pleasure he felt. "When he had 
remained so for some time * * he rose up full of 
an unwonted joy^ and immediately all his body 
began to shake with a vehement tremor ; and, 
putting his hand to his bosom, he felt by the side 
of his heart a tumor about as big as a man’s fist, 
but neither then, nor even afterwards, was it 
attended with the slightest harm”! Probably 
some medical sceptic (!) might presume to call 
this an aortic aneurism, but the following addition 
by Dr. Faber leaves no room for such a conjecture. 
“Whence this swelling proceeded, and what it 
was, was manifested after his death. For when 
his body was opened, the two upper ribs were 
found broken, and thrust outward, and the two sides 


220 


Appendix . 


standing wide apart , never having re-united in all 
the fifty years which Philip lived after this miracu- 
lous event.” As a curious, but interesting fact to 
illustrate another department of Natural Science, 
Dr. Faber tells us that St. Philip’s body was 
“ sometimes lifted into the air through the vehe- 
mence of the palpitation of his heart I” 

“ Each fancies that his own remedy is a specific 
—Page 109. 

In professional language this is not strictly true. 
There are only three, or, perhaps four specifics 
known to physicians, such as quinine for ague, 
and sulphur for scabies, &c. 

NOTE— Page 109. 

“ Disease , if left alone f &c. 

In the “ Clinical Lectures,” by Robert Bentley 
Todd, M.D., F.R.S., page 7, 8, we find the follow- 
ing remarks :— 

(a). “1. That the notion, so long prevalent in 

the schools, that acute disease can be prevented, 
or cured by means which depress, and reduce 
vital and nervous power, is altogether fallacious. 

“2. That acute disease is not curable by the 


Appendix . 


221 


direct influence of any form of drug, or any known 
remedial agent, excepting when it is capable of 
acting as an antidote, or of neutralizing a poison, 
on the presence of which in the system, the 
disease may depend. 

“ 3. That disease is cured by natural processes, 
to promote which, in their full vigor, vital power 
must be upheld. Remedies, whether in the shape 
of drugs, which exercise a special physiological 
influence on the system, or in whatever form, are 
useful only so far as they may excite, assist, or 
promote these natural curative processes ” 

(6). In Lectures on “The Principles and 
Practice of Physic,” by Thomas Watson, M.D., 
&c., &c., vol. ii. p. 765. Lecture lxxxvi., we read 
as follows : — 

“ The tendency to recovery which manifests 
itself under different modes of treatment, and even 
in spite of opposite modes, has induced, in some 
minds, a degree of scepticism as to the utility of 
any remedies, that may easily be carried too far. 
It does not follow, because the majority of patients 
under continued fever would at length emerge 
into health, although no remedial measures were 


222 


Appendix . 


employed, that the disease ought therefore to be 
abandoned to what Cullen calls the vis medicatrix 
natures. * * * * The disease is produced by a 
poison, of which the injurious impression upon 
the animal economy at length ceases, or passes 
off, of itself, in the same manner, only more slowly, 
as the influence of a dose of opium will spontane- 
ously pass away.” That is to say, notwithstand- 
ing the different modes, or the opposite modes of 
treatment, disease has a tendency to wear itself 
out. Having stated that there are certain tenden- 
cies of disease, which remedial measures, oppor- 
tunely and judiciously applied, avail to oppose 
and control, Dr. Watson adds, — “I agree most 
entirely with Pitcairn, who, being asked what he 
thought upon a certain treatise on fever, declared, 
‘I do not like fever-curers. You may guide a 
fever ; you cannot cure it. What would you 
think of a pilot who attempted to quell a storm ? 
Either position is equally absurd. In the storm 
you steer the ship as well as you can ; and in a 
fever you can only employ patience and judicious 
measures to meet the difficulties of the case.” 

In Dr. Aitken’s “ Science and Practice of Med- 
icine,” vol. ii. p. 750, 5th edition, 1868 — on the 


Appendix . 


223 


treatment of Pneumonia without depletion , Dr. 
Bennett’s statistics show a mortality of 1 in 21.4 ; 
Dietls 1 in 13 ; the Homoeopathic treatment 
(mainly expectant) 1 in 6 : Vienna 1856, 1 in 4. 
With antimony and bleeding — Grisolle lost 1 in 8 ; 
Dr. Bell, Glasgow, 1 in 17.7 ; Trousseau 1 in 26 ; 
Wossildo 9 in 76. Treatment by the inhalation of 
Chloroform — Baumgartaer 1 in 10 ; Varrantrapp 
1 in 23. Former statistics in the Koyal Infirmary 
of Edinburgh, are said to show a mortality 
of 1 in 3. 

Such experiments are unwise, and scarcely 
justifiable. The reasonable mode of treating 
pneumonia is to treat each case on its own merits 
— to treat not the disease, or the name of the dis- 
ease, but the patient. The qualifying conditions 
are so numerous, and so influential, that one mode 
of treatment may be best for one patient, and a 
very different, or even opposite mode of treat- 
ment may be the best for another patient. 

NOTE— Page 155. 

“ Like insects,” &c. 

“There is (says Archbishop Whately) a re- 
markable phenomenon connected with insect life 


224 


Appendix . 


which has often occurred to my mind, while 
meditating on the subject of preparedness for a 
future state, as presenting a curious analogy. 
Most persons know that every butterfly (the Greek 
name for which, it is remarkable, is the same that 
signifies also the Soul — Psyche) comes from a 
grub or caterpillar, in the language of naturalists, 
called a larva. The last name (which signifies, 
literally, a mask) was introduced by Linnaeus, 
because the caterpillar is a kind of outward cover- 
ing, or disguise of the future butterfly within. 
For, it has been ascertained, by curious micro- 
scopic examination, that a distinct butterfly, only 
undeveloped and not full-grown, is contained 
within the body of the caterpillar ; that this latter 
has its own organs, its digestion, respiration, &c., 
suitable to its larva-life, quite distinct from, and 
independent of, the future butterfly which it 
encloses. When the proper period arrives, and 
the life of the insect, in this its first stage, is to 
close, it becomes what is called a pupa, enclosed 
in a chrysalis, or cocoon (often composed of silk, 
as is that of the silk worm, which supplies us that 
important article) and lies torpid for a time with- 


Appendix. 


225 


in this natural coffin, from which it issues, at the 
proper period, as a perfect butterfly. 

But, sometimes the process is marred : There 
is a numerous tribe of insects well known to 
Naturalists, called Ichneumon flies, which, in their 
larva-state, are parasitical ; that is, inhabit, and 
feed on other larvse. The ichneumon fly, being 
provided with a long sharp sting, which is in fact 
an ovipositor (egg layer), pierces into this, the 
body of the caterpillar, in several places, and 
deposits her eggs, which are there hatched, and 
feed as grubs (larvse) on the inward parts of their 
victim. A most wonderful circumstance connect- 
ed with this process is, a caterpillar which has 
been thus attacked, goes on feeding, and ap- 
parently thriving quite as well, during the whole 
of its larva-life, as those that have escaped. For, 
by a wonderful provision of instinct, the ichneu- 
mon-grubs within, do not injure any of the organs 
of the larva, but feed only on the future butterfly 
enclosed within it. And, consequently, it is 
hardly possible to distinguish a caterpillar which 
has these enemies within it, from those that are 
untouched. But when the period arrives for the 
close of the larva-life, the difference appears. 
15 


226 


Appendix . 


You may often observe the common cabbage- 
caterpillars retiring to undergo their change, into 
some sheltered spot, — such as the walls of a 
summer-house ; and some of them — those that 
have escaped the parasites — assuming the pupa- 
state, from which they emerge, butterflies. Of the 
unfortunate caterpillar that has been preyed upon, 
nothing remains but an empty skin. The hidden 
butterfly has been secretly consumed. 

Now, is there not something analogous to this 
wonderful phenomenon, in the condition of some 
of our race ? May not a man have a kind of secret 
enemy within his own bosom, destroying his soul 
— Psyche , — though without interfering with his 
well-being during his present stage of existence ; 
and whose presence may never be detected till the 
time arrives when the last great change should 
take place ? 

NOTE— Page 167. 

“ Mr. Gibbon,” &c. 

The Author of the “Decline and Fall of the 
Roman Empire,” makes the following allusion to 
the corrupt practices which succeeded the pure 
and spiritual religion of the primitive Chris- 
tians 


Appendix , 


227 


“ If (says Mr. Gibbon), in the beginning of the 
5th century, Tertullian, or Lactantius, had been 
suddenly raised from the dead, to assist at tho 
festival of some popular Saint, or Martyr ; they 
would have gazed with astonishment and indig- 
nation on the profane spectacle, which had 
succeeded to the pure and spiritual worship of a 
Christian congregation. As soon as the doors of 
the Church were thrown open, they must have 
been offended by the smoke of incense, the perfume 
of flowers, and the glare of lamps and tapers, 
which diffused at noon-day a gaudy, superfluous, 
and in their opinion, a sacrilegious light. * * * 
* Whenever they undertook any distant or dan- 
gerous journey, they requested that the holy 
Martyrs would be their guides and protectors on 
the road ; and if they returned without having 
experienced any misfortune, they again hastened 
to the tombs of tho Martyrs, to celebrate, with 
grateful thanksgivings, their obligations to the 
memory and relics of those heavenly patrons. 
The walls were hung round with symbols of the 
favors which they had received, eyes, and hands, 
and feet, of gold and silver ; and edifying pictures, 
which could not escape the abuse of indiscreet, or 


228 


Appendix. 


idolatrous devotion, represented the image, the 
attributes, and the miracles of the tutelar saint. 
The same uniform original spirit of superstition 
might suggest, in the most distant ages and 
countries, the same methods of deceiving the 
credulity, and of affecting the senses of mankind ; 
but it must ingenuously be confessed, that the 
ministers of the Catholic Church imitated the 
profane model which they were impatient to de- 
stroy. The most respectable Bishops had per- 
suaded themselves that the ignorant rustics would 
more cheerfully renounce the superstitions of 
Paganism, if they formed some resemblance, some 
compensation in the bosom of Christianity. The 
religion of Constantine achieved, in less than a 
century, the final conquest of the Roman Empire ; 
but the victors themselves were insensibly sub- 
dued by the acts of their vanquished rivals.” 


Appendix \ 


229 


NOTE — Page 188. 

THE NAUTILUS AND THE AMMONITE. 

“The Nautilus and the Ammonite 
Were launched in friendly strife ; 

Each sent to float, in its tiny boat, 

On the wide wild sea of life ! 

“For each could swim on the ocean’s brim, 
And when wearied its sail could furl ; 

And sink to sleep, in the great sea-deep, 

In its palace all of pearl ! 

“And theirs was a bliss more fair than this, 
Which we taste in our colder clime ; 

For they were rife in a tropic life, 

A brighter and better clime ! 

“They swarm ’mid isles, whose summer-smiles 
Were dimmed by no alloy ; 

Whose groves were palm , whose air was balm, 
And life — one only joy ! 

‘ ‘ They sailed all day, through creek and bay, 
And traversed the ocean deep ; 

And at night they sank on a coral bank, 

In its fairy bowers to sleep ! 

“And the monsters vast, of ages past, 

They beheld in their ocean-caves ; 

They saw them ride in their power and pride, 
And sink in their deep sea-graves. 

“And hand in hand, from strand to strand, 

They sailed in mirth and glee ; 

These fairy shells, with their crystal cells, 

Twin sisters of the sea ! 


230 


Appendix, 


“And they came at last, to a sea long past, 

But as they reached its shore ; 

The Almighty’s breath spoke out in death, 

And the Ammonite lived no more ! 

“So the Nautilus now, in its shelly prow. 

As over the deep it strays ; 

Still seems to seek, in bay and creek, 

Its companion of other days. 

“And alike do we, on life’s stormy sea, 

As we roam from shore to shore ; 

Thus, tempest-tost seek the loved, the lost, 

But find them on earth no more ! 

“Yet the hope how sweet, again to meet, 

As we look to a distant strand ; 

Where heart meets heart, and no more they part, 
Who meet in that better land.” 

Richardson's Geology. 






















































































































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